Waking Up
by InMyEyes2014
Summary: After an explosion in Regina's vault sends curses and spells flying through the streets of Storybrooke, Killian Jones finds himself with no memory of the last two years. That would be fine except he's now married to the woman who left him on top of the beanstalk and has shown no interest in him - Emma Swan.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This story is set within the current timeline of the show. Two differences will stand out to you, but they should be self-explanatory as the story progresses. **

The cruel brightness of the florescent lamps woke Killian Jones from the thick sleep of what he assumed to be a hangover. He had seen those lights before. Only the Storybrooke hospital had such demonic contraptions with their low hum of indistinguishable sounds and a brightness that rivaled the sun when one tried to sleep. Killian Jones was used to hangovers, having suffered the pain and nausea of them for centuries, but this pain felt worse than any he had known before. His head not only ached, but throbbed with growing intensity and the bile of his stomach threatened to escape through his mouth if he so much as moved.

Through the tiny slits he allowed his eyes to open he could see her, Emma Swan, perched on the side of his bed with her golden hair flowing down over her shoulders. She was watching him sleep, her expression drawn and worried as she stared at him, occasionally reaching out to smooth an errant hair or run her thumb over the stubble on his cheek. This was certainly a development, he thought as he closed his eyes against the light's intrusion. The prince and princess's daughter was sitting on his bed, seeming to be waiting for him to wake up.

"Hey there," he said with a hoarse voice, forcing his eyes blue eyes open to greet her. "You're here."

She nodded her head, eyelashes fluttering as though she was feeling the prickle of tears beginning to burn. "I didn't know if you'd wake up or not," she said, her voice a mere whisper. "We weren't sure what…"

He swallowed hard, feeling the sting of acid in his throat. "I'm fine, love," he told her. "Just shocked to see you here."

Her eyes darted up to meet his quizzical gaze. "Where else would I be?" she asked suddenly. "We're…I'm…" She broke the conversation off. "I was worried. So many people were hurt or cursed today. It's amazing that you even survived. According to Henry, you took a direct hit."

"Henry?" Killian asked, groggily stretching in the thin bed of the hospital. "Aye, your boy."

She frowned down at him, her hand tracing over the side of his face before she spoke. "There was an explosion at the crypt where Regina stores her equipment and ingredients," Emma said. "You were hit with some of the debris. I thought for a while that you…There have been quite a few people injured. One of the fairies is under a sleeping curse. Two of the dwarfs got splashed with vials of potions that have switched their personalities. Marco got hit with some other potion that has him being remarkably honest to people. I think he's been in here twice telling you how much he admires you. And Ruby.." She laughed, a tight and controlled sound. "Well let's just say she got hit with something that has her considering joining the convent."

"Aye," he said slowly, trying to place each name with a face. "And you believed me to be a part of the casualties?" Though he was surprised at how forward she was with him, he did not want her to take her hand away, its warmth welcome on his skin.

"Henry couldn't be sure what hit you, but you jumped in front of him," Emma explained. "By the time I got there you were unconscious. Regina's sorting through what curses and potions were lost, but she said it could take a month. So all I could do is wait for you to wake up." She yanked her hand back as his head tilted into her palm.

"So I might be cursed in some form?" he asked. Holding up his arms, he tried to do an inventory. "Two legs and feet, two arms, one hand, all here. Would you care to do inventory on the rest of me?" He arched an eyebrow at her, expecting her to slap him or chastise him for being forward and full of innuendo. "Love?"

"Physically you appear fine," she said. "We don't know what kind of spell or curse hit you, but thankfully you didn't turn into a toad or something." She coughed lightly. "What can you tell me? What's the last thing you remember?"

He paused, reaching up to scratch his chin. "I was at the town line with the Dark One and that lady he loves, Belle," Killian answered, his eyes no longer playful but thoughtful as he considered the memory. "I shot her to make her fall over the line and make that bloody Crocodile suffer." He chuckled. "The cry of anguish coming from him was the last thing I heard until that horseless carriage struck me and sent me tumbling through the air."

Emma's eyes grew wide as she stared down at him. "Killian," she said softly. "That was two years ago, now." She stared into his eyes for any sign that he might be joking. "That is the last memory you have?"

His face contorted in concentration. "You say I was at Regina's crypt, but I don't remember that. I remember some sort of contraption arriving and carrying me on a bed here to this medical ward." He looked around the room with a single glance. "You were there yelling for the medics to hide me. You had already stopped the Dark One from finishing me off. Why was that, love? Couldn't bear to part from me?"

She mumbled what sounded like a silent prayer, a hand shaking over her mouth. "Killian…"

"I like how you say that," he told her. "You always say Hook with such contempt that it is nice to hear the softness in your voice when you call me Killian."

"I think I should see to a doctor," she said, sliding herself off the side of the bed. "Maybe Dr. Whale can tell us what seems to be the problem." Before he could question her, she was opening the door and calling out loudly to the staff. She shot him just one more nervous look before she ran from the room and the only sign of her was her frantic and loud words.

Dr. Whale examined him for about 20 minutes before he finally spoke to Emma, who had been relegated to a corner during the tests and competency exams. The doctor only shook his head when Emma queried about the pirate's condition. The most he would say was that Killian was physically fine. There were no abrasions or cuts, no internal injuries or trauma. So when Regina entered the room, Emma was more frustrated than saddened by his condition. She held up a tiny vial in one hand and an even tinier slip of paper in the other. "Now that he's awake," the woman said, dipping the white paper into the clear liquid of the vial, "I can better determine what hit him. Captain, when I hold his paper before you, I want you to blow your breath as hard as you can against it."

She dipped and swooped her hand with the paper around him, first his arms and chest and then down one leg and up another. Next she skipped to his head, letting the paper tickle over the skin of his forehead and then holding it close to his lips. He blew all the air he could and felt the strip blow against him in the effort. She nodded once and held it up between her forefinger and thumb. "Oh my," she said, holding it out for Emma to study. "It's yellow."

"And what the bloody hell does that mean?" Killian demanded, looking from one woman to the other. "Why have you brought this sorceress in here anyway?"

Regina ignored the man's questions and demands. "Memory curse," she said, as though she was discussing the weather. "Looks like he didn't get the full brunt of it since he still has most of his memories intact, but he's definitely suffering some memory loss."

Emma emerged from the shadowy corner with a frown and knotted brow. "Two years worth," she said, placing a hand on his chest. "That's quite a bit, given that…"

"Love," he said, his voice still thick from the days of sleep and very little use. "That's quite a ring." He was staring at her left hand and the bridal set that she wore there. His eyes tapered suspiciously over the diamond. "Congratulations are in order…"

"Oh God," Emma moaned, her pale skin pinking from a sudden flush. "He…"

"A lot has happened in two years," Regina reminded her. "A lot."

"Your boy's father, no doubt," Killian said, still studying the hand on his chest. She ripped it back as though the act had burned her. "I offer a hearty congratulations to you both."

She seemed to be searching for something as she stared down at her hand, strength perhaps. Regina was more amused though, alternating her stare between the two of them as though watching a tennis match.

"No," Emma said finally. "I'm…We're…"

Regina rolled her eyes and dropped the slip of paper into the wastebasket. "This is very entertaining, but I've got six more visits on this floor and an antidote to negotiate out of Rumpelstiltskin. Your identity issues aren't something I can deal with right now."

Emma's head turned swiftly, garnering Regina's cold gaze. "You are just going to leave him like this. Leave him believing it is two years ago."

"What the bloody hell are you talking about, love?" Killian asked as Emma stood in the way of Regina's exit with her arms crossed over her red sweater.

"How do I fix this?" she asked, holding her face just inches from the Evil Queen's.

"You can't," Regina said matter of factly. "Only true love's kiss can reverse this. But he has to have his memories restored for that to work. Catch 22 I guess."

Emma's face was now showing the signs of a furious woman. "You guess!"

"Well try kissing him," Regina suggested. "It certainly wouldn't hurt. And the Captain Hook of two years ago would not have turned down a kiss from you."

"I'm married," Emma protested. "I can't go around kissing…"

"Your husband?" Regina answered. "Sure you can. It is a benefit of marriage." Regina shrugged, giving a nod toward Killian and another toward Emma. "Good luck. If I come across anything…"

"Seriously!" Emma screeched. "This is the response I'm getting."

"Love, what does she mean…" Killian began before Emma was yelling at Regina again. It was his turn to mimic the audience at a tennis match. She ranted and raved before kicking the Evil Queen out of the room. Turning back to him, her breath hitched and her face grew even redder.

"I owe you an explanation," she said, almost shyly from across the room. Leaning against the closed door, she braced her hands against the cold wood. "You see, we're married. I'm your wife."


	2. Chapter 2

Henry had insisted on seeing him, unwilling to accept that the past two years had been erased from the pirate's mind. "But Mom," he said when Emma finally finished explaining the situation. "He just needs us to help him remember." In about 15 minutes time, the 12 year old was packing a bag of photos, notes, and even a video to show his stepfather, despite both of his mother's strict instructions.

Killian had been somewhat patient, listening to the boy prattle on about stealing ships and sailing around the harbor of Storybrooke. The boy seemed to know only bits and pieces of information, but unlike Emma, he willingly shared it and usually had photographic evidence to back him up.

"The bloody Dark One stole my heart?" Killian roared at one point in the conversation. His face grew pale and his eyes darkened with anger that his arch enemy might have had control and power over him for even a minute let alone days. "What sort of sinister..."

Henry rocked back on the heels of his sneakers. "Don't get upset," he warned. "Belle helped to get it back for you and Mom reinserted it. You're fine now and my grandfather's been banished from Storybrooke." The boy watched Killian's rage seethe for a moment and settle over him like a dark cloud. "Are you okay?"

Killian grunted his reply, annoyed to still be in a bed when so much was going on and there were so many things he had missed or forgotten. "That woman," he managed to say. "Belle. She's still alive? Doing well?"

"Sure," Henry said. She's a hero now, just like she always wanted to be. I guess she misses my grandfather, but she's busy with the shop, his properties, and of course the library." Henry closed the abandoned photo album on the bed and moved to place it in his bag. "She said to tell you to get well soon. She's looking forward to having you come in and do some appraisals on some of the items still in the pawn shop."

Killian looked surprised, picking up another photograph that included him, Emma, and Henry on the steps of a clapboard house. He had his arms around both of them and warm smile on his face. He did not smile like that unless he wanted something. Throwing it down on the pile, he grimaced. "You mean Belle and I are on speaking terms," he questioned. "She has forgiven me for my transgressions?"

"Sure," Henry said. "Most people in town have forgiven each other for things that happened before. You kind of have to around here or you're stuck hating everyone in town. Then boom another curse comes and who knows if you need to trust them or not. It is all very confusing and easier just to accept people's apologies and move on." Henry reached over with another photograph, this one of Killian teaching him how to tie a knot. "My mom couldn't stand you at first. She said she couldn't trust you, but you won her over eventually. You can tell because she let us hang out even before you guys started dating."

Killian looked at the latest photograph, seeing his soft expression and the look of awe on the boy's face. It certainly didn't fit, but he could find no error in the boy's story from the evidence in front of him. "And you are okay with my being married to your mother?"

"I guess," Henry answered, for once looking a bit nervous. "It was sort of a fast decision. I knew it would happen sooner or later, but you two fought for longer than you actually dated. So it's weird. Plus you were living with my grandmother. That's really creepy when you think about it."

"Wait," Killian said, his hand stroking the bottom half of his face as if the answer might be hidden there. "Your grandmother. You mean…"

"My grandfather's first wife," Henry explained hurriedly. "I think my dad said her name was Milah. You lived with her, right? That's what my father said. Anyway. I know you were cursed and spent a lot time in Neverland, but seriously the fact that you went from my grandmother to my mother is strange. I try not to think of it much." Henry pulled out another photo of Mary Margaret, David, Killian, Emma, and the new prince. Killian's fingers traced over the image, leisurely stalling over Emma's smiling face.

"Wait!" Killian said as the boy pulled the photo back. "I'm a father." He pulled the photo closer to him, studying the pudgy baby in Emma's arms closely.

Henry laughed. "No," he said. "That's my uncle. His name is Neal and my grandparents had him about six months ago. That photo was from his christening. I can leave these here if you want, but I've got to go back and help Belle. She's trying to sort through some of my grandfather's stuff to help my mom with cures for some of the spells and potions that hurt people. I said I'd do what I could."

Killian's head pounded and his muscles ached from his jaw to his ankles. "Any other surprises I should know?" he asked the young boy. "Have I a new career or a new name?"

Thoughtfully, Henry straightened the remaining stack of photos and placed them on the tray over Killian's bed. "I don't really know that much, but I know you don't have a ship of your own now," Henry said, shying away when the pirate's eyebrow arched so high it almost hit his hairline. "You've been working at the sheriff station some with mom and down at the harbor helping to restore some of the boats that were left over from the first curse."

"The _Jolly Roger_? Killian requested. "What the bloody hell became of her?" The information was too much. He had no doubt that he could have worn down Emma Swan in two years. She was not immune to him or his charm, though marriage seemed a bit out of character for him. In his hundreds of years he had managed to avoid such commitment. A life without his one true love – his home – his ship – his livelihood? It was too much to consider. Next the boy would tell him that he no longer wore his hook. Or that he was no longer considered the dashing rapscallion who struck fear in the heart of sailors and merchants and made women go weak in the knees with a mere smirk or wink.

"You'll have to ask Mom," Henry said, throwing the strap of his book bag over his shoulder. "She'd know. I never asked so…I hope I've been of some help." The boy held to the railing of the hospital bed, for once shy and unsure. He leaned forward a bit, waiting for his step-father to embrace him. But when Killian made no such move, the boy backtracked and headed to the door. "Feel better!"

Alone in the room, Killian closed his eyes and attempted to let the information he had heard sink in over him. The boy, though not full of details, had offered him more than he had gotten from the broken statements of Emma. He had shown Killian a photo from the wedding where Killian was dressed in not formal attire, but a modern looking suit and his bride was wearing a lacy white dress and white flowers in her hair that curled around her shoulders and down her back. They both looked the camera with smiles that lit their faces. Hands clasped and rings shining, they were on the verge of laughter and somewhere in his mind he wondered if he had enjoyed the taste of her kiss as much as he imagined he might.

He had spent a fair amount of time with her in the Enchanted Forest and seen her briefly in his time in Storybrooke. She was an intriguing woman, who he knew would challenge and test him at every turn. She had been his reluctant partner on the beanstalk, loath to trust him or even open her mouth around him. He'd noticed the looks she gave him, hostile at first and then more exploratory. She never uttered an actual question other than of the fate of Milah, but he'd seen them in her eyes. She wanted to know about him just as much as he wanted to know about her. Had the met in a pub rather than with him buried under a pile of rubble and bodies, he might have bedded her immediately.

"He was determined to see you," Emma said as she entered the room. She was hesitant, a fortified expression having replaced her concern from earlier. "I apologize for launching him on you."

She crossed the room with precise steps, a straight line to the chair that her son had just vacated. Pulling it back from his bedside, she sat down on its edge, her hands gripping the arms of it.

"He's a fine lad," Killian answered when she didn't continue. He knew he had to make some comment. "I see why you were so desperate to get home to him."

She looked confused for a moment, mouth agape and eyes searching. "Oh you mean when we met in the Enchanted Forest," she finally realized. "I was desperate to get home to him. I missed him very much."

"I can see why," he said. "And you've had two years with him now. I presume it has been uneventful."

Emma wanted to laugh, her chortle coming out like a sarcastic grunt. "If you call kidnappings to Neverland, Wicked Witches, Curses, and Ice Queen, a trip through a time portal, and Rumpelstiltskin making you his puppet and threatening your life to be uneventful."

Again the information overload made Killian close his eyes with a weary sigh. "And in that time we became betrothed and eventually married?" He shook his head. "I'm disappointed. I would have presumed that I would have killed the Dark One by now. Did I become so distracted with you, love?"

She was still gripping the arms of the chair, not a muscle in her body relaxed. "I need to be honest with you, Killian," she said. "Our marriage is a sham. It's a long story, but we got married when we went through that time portal. It was sort of a legal thing to avoid…"

"A sham?" he asked, rotating his head on the pillow to better see her. "But the wedding photo that your boy showed me?"

She sighed. "He shouldn't have done that," she said. "We have perpetuated this long enough. Now that Rumpelstiltskin is no longer in our lives, it isn't necessary. We faked it so that people would think…" She rubbed her temples. "We fooled most people, but seriously, you don't need this in your life right now."

"We aren't married?" he asked for clarification.

"We are," she ground out slowly. "But it is just an agreement. It's not love or anything." Emma pressed her hands back to the arms of the chair to push herself up. She stood at the foot of his bed and looked at him for a long minute. "I'm sorry."

"For what, love?" he asked. "I only desired the truth."

She placed a fist to her mouth and let out a little cough. "I know," she said. That's important to both of us."

_**A/N: I wasn't sure if Henry knew any of the details about Milah, but for this story he does. **_

_**I'm loving the great response so far. My e-mail has been dinging all evening since I posted. **_


	3. Chapter 3

Emma crossed the living room of the apartment with her arms loaded down with laundry, she was balancing the overflowing basket as her phone rang and the doorbell sounded loudly from the foyer. Henry was laying on his stomach, the video game controller in his hand and the wrapper of his favorite candy bar littering the spot beside him.

"Kid?" she asked as she passed him, the tip of her boot nudging his leg. "Get the door?"

With a sigh he paused the game and groaned in protest as he walked the few feet to the door and swung it open lazily. His grandmother stood on the other side, her cherub like face smiling brightly at him and his uncle secure on her hip. She hugged him with one arm, asked about school, and proceeded to tell him that he needed to come over for dinner more often. "Your mom home?" she asked. He pointed over his shoulder at his mother who was writing furiously on a dry erase board next to the kitchen. Mary Margaret waited until her daughter had disconnected from the call and then launched herself to give the blonde woman a one armed hug.

"Of all the luck," her mother said, readjusting the squirming Neal. "How is he? Physically, I mean."

Emma looked at Henry hovering in the background. "He's going to be fine," Emma said. "Not so much as a scratch on him."

"But his memory?" the woman asked, shaking her head before Emma had a chance to answer. "This is a pure nightmare. Did Regina have any suggestions? What about Belle? Maybe there is something at the shop? Something to reverse it."

Emma explained that so far everyone was drawing a blank. True Love's Kiss might have been a possibility, but it rarely worked in cases where memory loss was a factor. Emma frowned as she began folding the laundry from the basket, making the occasional face at her baby brother and reaching out to squeeze his chubby feet.

"Are you sure?" Mary Margaret asked. "I mean I know he doesn't remember the past two years, but he's been hung up on you since the beginning. It could be worth a shot."

Emma frowned again, folding one of Henry's t-shirts and smoothing out the creases with the palms of her hands. "I tried it," she lied. "It didn't work." The sat there in her throat, burning as she said it. She hoped her mother had not seen the way that her eyes darted away or heard how her voice caught.

"Oh," her mother responded disappointedly. "I was so sure. I'm sorry, Emma." She glanced around the apartment that he daughter had taken not long before she and Killian had married. The two of them had seemed to fall easily into domestic bliss, something that she and David still marveled over. Their daughter had seemed so happy and Killian had been eager to keep her that way. If she so much as looked twice at anything or mentioned something in passing, it was his goal to procure it for her.

"Right now the focus is getting him stable," Emma said. "Dr. Whale said they could release him today or tomorrow. I don't know where we should…"

"Oh that might be awkward," Mary Margaret noted thoughtfully. "Belle's been staying with us because she said she hated the idea of going back to the house alone. And Granny's has been full since the Merry Men moved from the forest into town. With Robin gone they've all been looking for jobs and felt that it made sense to get out of those tents."

Emma glanced through the open doorway to the bedroom. "I know he's not physically hurt, but he must be sore. The blast alone sent him about 20 feet back. Henry has two bruises the size of a dinner plate. I hate for him to sleep on the couch."

Her mother bounced her baby brother, cooing for a moment. "Emma," she said. "I know that things are going to be odd with his memories gone, but you are married. Maybe normalcy is what he needs."

Mouth in a thin line, Emma stacked the folded laundry and pressed it against her chest to carry it to the bedrooms. "Killian doesn't really even know me anymore," she said. "He sort of knows the me from two years ago, but I've changed since then." She studied the pile in her hands. "Besides there were problems even before this."

That statement startled her mother. "Problems?" she asked, trying to rack her brain for any clue that might have been evident. She could remember none. Killian and Emma seemed the very definition of happy to her. Even David had given up trying to scare the man who had become their son-in-law, finding that his daughter's face lit up at the mere mention of his name. Problems? She wanted to ask what they were, but it did not seem to be right to do so.

Mary Margaret followed her daughter into the bedroom and helped by opening the drawers. "Emma," she said hesitantly when the last item was put away. "I know that you have changed. You used to see the worst in people and hated the very thought of anyone getting to know you." She readjusted the baby on her other hip. "I'm just hoping that you're not…"

"I'm not what?" Emma asked, an edge to her voice as she resisted putting her hands on her hips.

"It would be easy to see this as a sign," Mary Margaret said softly. "Or use it as an excuse." She pointed at the framed photo of Killian and Emma on the dresser. "I hope you aren't going to use his memory loss as a reason to throw everything away. You two have been so happy together."

"Mom," she said with a warning tone. "You don't understand this. We got married so fast. It was…"

"Romantic?" her mother suggested.

"Rushed," Emma corrected. "I'm just saying that this is a good opportunity to take a step back. I'm not saying it's over. I just don't want to force him to feel anything. Right now he's confused and I'm someone he barely knows. I don't want…"

"You're putting up walls." Mary Margaret smiled sympathetically at her daughter. "You know he loves you. And somewhere in his mind he still does."

Emma didn't answer, her face stoic and her arms folded across her chest. "We'll see what happens. Don't force this."

Henry's voice rang out from the living room telling her that her phone was once again ringing. Brushing past her mother, she trotted into the living room and grabbed the flat black device out of his hand. Answering it, she offered a few affirmative answers and nodded to herself.

After the call, she frowned and told Henry to clean up his mess. "Killian's being released today," she said in a flat tone. "I've got to go get him."

"I could help," her mother suggested.

"Ummmm…no," Emma answered. "I can handle this." She shooed her mother out and asked Henry if he minded packing a bag to stay at Regina's for a day or two. Using the excuse that Killian would need peace and quiet, she sent her son off with a kiss and promise that he could be back in his bed soon. Hurriedly she rushed about the apartment and grabbed the framed photos off the shelves and tables. They would be too painful, she told herself. Each one a memory that he no longer shared. Each one a reminder to her of a life that had seemed so close until it had fallen apart.

"_Emma, you can't do this," Killian had said that last morning before the explosion. He was wearing a pair of black sleep pants, his chest bare and hair ruffled from sleep. _

"_I can and I will," Emma had told him with so much defiance that she sounded more like a teenager than a grown woman. She was pouring their coffee and had carefully placed bacon next to the poached eggs on the green and white plates that they had received as a wedding present. _

"_You have to think of us," he told her, "of Henry." He was being manipulative, playing up her weakness of wanting Henry to have the perfect childhood. In that moment she hated him for that, but she understood. He loved his stepson, wanted the best for him too. _

"_I am thinking of all of us," she told him, slamming the coffee mug back on the table. "Don't you dare judge me!" _

She shook her head to rid herself of that memory. Killian had it easier than he knew. Looking around the apartment, she frowned deeply, her brow folding into worried lines. She could do this, she told herself. She could make him believe.

Killian's eyes darted around the apartment as she walked him inside from the cool air. He'd already protested loudly when she brought his clothes to the hospital, telling her that she had to be mistaken and that he would have never given up his pirate leather in exchange for the clothes of this realm. She watched his deliberate movements around the room, his slow steps stopping completely as he stared in a mixture of wonder and bewilderment at the appliances alone.

"The bed's this way," she told him, frowning as his familiar smirk returned at her words. She shook her head and walked him toward the room that they had shared. "You should get some rest."

"What do you suppose I have been doing for the past couple of days in that infirmary?" he asked. He stopped in the doorway to the bedroom, shifting his gaze from the queen size bed back to Emma who stood sorting the mail in the living room. "And darling I have to ask about these living conditions. You claim our marriage is a counterfeit one, but we've been sharing that bed?"

She swallowed her lies and the doubt as she watched him wag an eyebrow suggestively in her direction. The butterflies in her stomach had turned to bats, fluttering and bumping into things as the light of the late afternoon sun glowed through the room and contrasted with his dark hair and features.

"_Is it really necessary that we have a bed big enough for all seven of the dwarfs to share?" he asked after the delivery men had left. The man had mastered cell phones, understood electricity, managed to make popcorn in a microwave, was succeeding at his driving lessons, and successfully navigated Henry's lessons on video games. Yet the large bed with its leather tufted headboard seemed to leave him confused._

_His arm snaked around her and pulled her to him, smiling obscenely at her. "It's more comfortable," she tried to explain as he paid more attention to the sensitive spots on her neck. "I'm sure you'll like it."_

"_We will have to write letters to each other from our opposite sides," he teased. "If you should miss me in the night, we might meet in the middle, if the lady so desires." His blue eyes could become dark and dangerous when he was of a certain mind. She never could meet his gaze at those times. _

"_Killian," she protested as his fingers found their way up under her top and teased the skin they found there. "It's just a bed. I thought you would like it."_

"_What's not to like about you and a bed?" he laughed hungrily. "I merely wondered if you thought why we should need that much room. You aren't pulling away from me again, are you?"_

"_Never," she said with her own smile growing. "My running days are over."_

_**I'm still very overwhelmed at the response to this story so far. I hope you continue to read and enjoy it. If you have any questions or suggestions, please include those. I have this mapped out in my head, but I can always try to clarify or incorporate other ideas if they fit. **_


	4. Chapter 4

She was reclined on the couch with one hand on the remote control and the other bent under her to prop up her head so she could see the television. Sleep was not something she had worried about in the past, as it had come easily and enveloped her in a usually dreamless stasis that refreshed and offered an escape from the real world. Tonight was different.

She blamed it on the couch that looked good in the pictures but now felt like a lumpy marshmallow with no firmness to support her. She blamed it on the fact that he was in bed, tossing and turning on sheets that they had once shared. She blamed it on the hum of the refrigerator that was beginning to remind her of a jet before takeoff. Yet blame was not going to let her sleep.

The only light in the apartment came from the glow of the television, showing some stupid movie she'd picked out on Netflix. It had been 20 minutes and she still wasn't sure what it was about or who any of the characters were in it. But the voices and music droning softly offered some comfort.

Pulling the throw blanket up under her chin and collapsing against the pillow she had managed to sneak out of the bedroom, she closed her eyes. Maybe if she pretended to sleep it would help. She needed her rest. Though her father was being helpful and taking on extra shifts at the sheriff's station, she still had work that required her attention. Her son always a priority, as were her parents and baby brother. In addition to solving the minor and major crises of the citizens of the small Maine town, she had a husband who was in need of her care. Sleep would have been helpful and welcome.

Killian Jones was not the model patient. He questioned her every action, complained about medicine, and on more than one occasion snuck away to find his flask rather than napped. She was trying to be a good nurse, bringing him books she had borrowed from Belle and attempting to answer his questions – there were many.

"Tell me again, love," he would say as she brought him his breakfast, lunch, or dinner. That was his way of saying that he did not understand or trust her explanations.

She'd had to call Regina to explain to him that Cora was dead, something he could not seem to comprehend. More unbelievable to him was the idea that he had traveled back to Neverland on the side of heroes, including teaming up briefly with his arch enemy – Rumpelstiltskin. He was in disbelief of so many things that her head swam for trying to provide proof of them.

"Swan?" he asked, his half-naked form looking at her from the end of the couch.

Her eyes flew open to see his shadowy form there. "Is everything alright?" she asked, shooting up to a sitting position. "Did you need something? Water? An extra blanket?"

There was low chuckle she assumed to be his, rumbling deeply. "I just wondered if you were taking your slumber now."

She sighed, falling back against the pillow. "You thought you would wake me up to see if I was asleep?" she asked, blinking to make her eyes adjust to the light. It helped some.

"I was lonely," he said, sitting on the arm of the couch. "I could tell you weren't asleep. You breathe different when you do." He turned his attention the television for a moment, considering the screen and the actors who were currently hurdling through space. He seemed to want to ask about it, but thought better of it.

"You've been here for less than a day and you know my sleeping patterns and habits?" she asked, scooting up on the couch and folding her legs underneath her so that he could sit on the far cushion. He took the invitation of her waved hand.

"Love, you're not so dissimilar than anyone else," he said. "A sleeping form is more relaxed than you were a few minutes ago. Your muscles were rigid and you were breathing as though you were thinking of something abysmal." He cocked his head to the side. "If we're married," he said. "Wouldn't I know such things?"

He could not see her rolling eyes in the darkness. "You don't remember any of those things," she said, her hands clutching the blanket as though it might provide more protection. "And you are annoying with your observations and clarifications about me and my life. Killian…"

"I can't quite get past that," he said, shifting to sink lower into the couch. "The way you say my name is markedly different than what I do remember. You always said Hook like you were spitting out the words, unwilling to show even the least indication that I might be worthy of your time and attention. Forgive me for being a bit perplexed of our current circumstances."

She did not know how to answer that. "I guess it just sounded better since we were acting like a married couple," she said softly. "I couldn't call my husband Hook."

He nodded as though he was considering that. "So what was the plan?" he asked. "You say that our life together was a façade. Surely we could not keep up such a deception forever." As he struggled to find a comfortable position his hand lightly grazed her legs. He pulled it back immediately and she ignored the implications.

"Paperwork," she said.

"Pardon?"

"The lawyer is drawing up some paperwork for the divorce," she explained. "Or fake marriage served its purpose already." She could not quite read the expression on his face with only the low light of the television to aid her eyes. "We're not quite the marriage type."

"Aye," he said slowly. "I apologize. I must be asking you too many questions."

Over the time they had spent together she had seen his expressions. There was the dark and angry side that he rarely showed any longer. There was the awe and wonderment that she had started to associate with him seeing her. There was the bemused look he would give her when she tried to explain something to him that he already knew. There was the conspiratorial one when he and Henry were trying to convince her of something. One of her favorites was the sweet smile he would get when she caught him watching her with her brother or when one of her parents complimented him, a mixture of pride, humility and shyness. She missed them, for the Killian of two years ago let no such expressions mar his reputation as a pirate. "You have been through a lot," she told him. "I'm sorry I'm not much help."

He nodded. "Your boy said that I no longer have my ship," he said, the words halting and sad. "I hoped you might shed some light on that?"

Her mouth twitched as she stared back at his unclear form. "Ummmm….yes," she said. "You see after we returned from Neverland, there was a curse. And you went back to the Enchanted Forest. When another curse was set to bring you and the others back here, you outran it with your ship."

"I can believe that," he said thoughtfully.

"In order to avoid the other effects of the curse, you traded it for a magic bean," she said, avoiding the discussion of his finding her in New York and serving her a cocktail of some kind to return her memories. Wait! She thought. Maybe she could provide him with such a mixture. Surely there had to be something. Regina had been close to finding the formula before. "That's pretty much all I know. You didn't really share with me who you traded the ship to or its fate."

"It must have been quite a nasty curse," he said.

She nodded again, unsure if he fully understood or even realized her omission. He had claimed from the beginning that he could read her, see past the walls and the smokescreen. She wondered if he still could, but when he lifted himself up off the couch, she realized that maybe he couldn't.

"I'll take my leave," he said. "You could use the rest." He paused, his hand gripping the couch's arm. "Are you certain that you will be comfortable out here?"

"The couch and I are good friends," she said, patting it as though she slept there each night. "You enjoy the bed."

_She was cradled in his arms as he swung her around the room, threatening to drop her on the overstuffed couch. "Put me down," she squealed, laughter peeling off of her as he spun around again. "You're an idiot and I'm getting dizzy."_

"_I thought you liked this tradition," he said with a mock look of hurt on his face. "You have loved it the past couple of days."_

_She rolled her eyes, arms looping around his neck. "Killian, the tradition is to carry the bride over the threshold the first time we enter the house. It's been four days. This is silly."_

_He quit spinning her around long enough to drop a kiss on her smirking mouth. "I think you like it," he repeated. "You love being in my arms."_

"_And you get no pleasure from it?" she asked. "And besides, you don't have to carry me for me to be in your arms. There are other ways."_

"_Care to offer a demonstration?" he asked._

"_Fine, but not on the couch," she said disdainfully. "I don't know why we bought that. It is the most uncomfortable thing."_

"_You insisted," he said, frowning over at the offending piece of furniture. "I seem to remember you stamping your foot to tell me that you couldn't live without it."_

"_I was wrong," she said, slapping his shoulder playfully when he looked shocked at her confession. "When we finish remodeling the cottage, I'm burning that couch or leaving it here for the next tenants."_

He turned toward the bedroom, searching for her in the dark as she clicked off the television and left them without even a shard of light. By the next morning, he was alone in the bed and looking for any clue to his current situation. For a moment he didn't remember where he was or who was clattering the dishes in the kitchen as they moved around obviously preparing a meal. It wasn't the sounds that he usually heard from his quarters on the Jolly Roger. Instead it was an almost cheerful and familial sound that reminded him of early mornings when he was younger. His mother must never have slept because she was always puttering about and making his life so much better. Always being difficult to wake up, his mother would make elaborate breakfasts out of the simplest of ingredients, showering affection on Killian and Liam. So when he could smell the warm and inviting aromas that indicated breakfast, he wondered for a moment if he was back there again.

Pulling his shirt over his head, he once exited the room that he had escaped to the night before.

"Good morning," she said cheerfully, as he stepped his bare feet onto the tile in the kitchen. The tile on the floor had been recently mopped and its teal green marble finish shone brightly in the sunlight. Emma's hand still held the damp yellow sponge that she was cleaning the blue countertops with. "Did you sleep well?"

"Like a baby," he answered. He could see an overflowing stack of pancakes at the center of the glass table in the corner of the kitchen. Emma had surrounded it with bowls of strawberries, peaches, and melon. A ceramic mug contained warmed maple syrup and sat next to a pitcher of orange juice and a carafe of coffee. "You must have gotten up early to do all this." His arms swept outward toward, as he gestured toward the cozy table.

"I like to cook," she said simply. Resting the sponge near the window, she wiped her hands on the blue and green checked dish cloth and smiled at him. "Are you ready to eat?"

"Starving," he admitted eyeing the bounty before him. "This looks interesting. I'm not sure I've ever had this before." He took a deep whiff of the array of scents and foods on the table.

"When you were living at the bed and breakfast you were always in the diner with some sort of comfort food." Emma poured the orange juice into the etched glasses and passed him one before pouring her own. "That first morning you were here, you must have eaten 10 or 15 pancakes. I think you and Henry were having a contest."

Killian had just stuffed his mouth with the first velvety bite when he heard her. After an awkward swallow, he cleared his throat to speak. "It is peculiar to hear of things that I don't remember or fully understand. I don't know what to think, but I really would like some answers."

"You deserve them," Emma agreed. "I'm sorry. I haven't really known what to say to you or how to make this work. Things have been awkward." She sips at the juice in her hand, nose crinkling at the sourness. "Maybe we can just be honest with each other."

He takes another bite, not answering but watching her cut and then not eat the pancakes on her plate. She began explaining some witch named Zelena and a spell that would allow her to travel back in time to alter the past. He heard the details, save one about the cursed lips and her distrust of him. And then he heard of a portal that opened somehow with magic still not fully understood. She told him of their falling through that portal.

"It must have been a maelstrom," he mused. "To pull us both through into its depth. Which of us fell first?"

She smiled, the first time he has seen a genuine one from her since this all happened. He watches it ebb and falter. "It was kind of simultaneous," she answers. "We fell at the same time."

He watches her jump up from her seat, carrying the juice back to the refrigerator and bringing back a wrapped nutrition bar of some kind. As she unwraps it, the size and consistency remind him of the hardtack that he and his crew would survive on at times. "And our time there must have been adventurous," he said, noting her mention that they married during a certain portion of this journey.

She flushed a bit, biting down on the substance in her hand. "We accidentally interfered with my parents meeting. It took quite some doing to get all that back on track."

He watched her, the relaxed expression she had tried so hard to wear before fading under the strain. "And we had to…"

"I don't know that I can explain it," she said. "There were circumstances…You were wanted by the Evil Queen's guards for some sort of crime. And she was suspicious of you. We played along with a con to make it look like you weren't the same man and that included us pretending to be together." She shrugged. "As a part of it, you and I got married so that nobody would suspect." Her eyes had been on the cup of juice she nursed along in her hand. Slowly they rose to meet his piercing gaze. "Once a portal reopened we came back here. But we were already married and my parents…"

"Were disappointed," he finished. "You are the only daughter of royalty. I have no doubt they didn't want you to marry a man like me, especially when they couldn't provide you a royal celebration and ceremony." When she opened her mouth, he shrugged. "I saw a photo from the ceremony. We were here in this town. It looked to be a rather simple affair."

"To make them happy," she said. "I would have been okay with the way things were. Since it was fake and all."

_A/N:_ _I had a question in my reviews about the marriage. Essentially, the story is that Emma and Killian got married right after the events of the midseason finale for this story. They were living happily as husband and wife until the accident with Regina's potions and spells. Emma, being Emma, has seen this as a sign or an excuse to push him away. So she has lied to him that their marriage is a sham. As you can see, she's a horrible liar. But in his current state Killian doesn't quite realize that she's lying._

_There is a reason that she keeps telling him that it was part of a ruse, including that it actually occurred in the Enchanted Forest. But you will have to keep reading to find that out. _


	5. Chapter 5

Emma zipped up the bag on the bed, her eyes darting from the perfectly folded comforter and sheets to his clothes from yesterday that sat ready in the antique rocking chair they had bought only the day before the accident. She closed her eyes for a moment, letting the pain of her forming headache ebb and flow through her temples.

"So what is it that I occupy myself with during your absence?" he asked after a 10 minute conversation marveling over the wonders of heated and running water. She had told him that matters required her attention at the station. She was needed by her father and several of the dwarfs who were still struggling against the personality switch that had left Bashful and Grumpy in each other's bodies. Heaven help her that it sounded more normal to deal with such a thing than answer any more of her husband's questions.

"You've been working at the docks some," she said vaguely. "But nobody expects you to jump right in and…" She hesitated, watching him. His eyes seemed dark and narrower than the man in her photographs. She knew the man he remembered being was a different man than the one she knew he had become, but the thought of him going back to his old vengeful ways seemed hard to accept.

"I should find something to occupy my time," he said. "Lest I find something to get myself on the wrong side of the law."

She chuckled lightly, lifting her bag over her shoulder. "What do you think you'd like to do?" she questioned. "In this state you barely recognize the town. You don't really know most of these people since you weren't in their circle during your Enchanted Forest days."

"I've always enjoyed exploring," he said with a slight grin. "Perhaps I might see you around?"

She nodded and turned to the door. "If you get hungry there is food here, but there is also Granny's. Everyone goes there and you should remember it somewhat. Your key is still on the key ring and there should be some money in your wallet." She paused. "You have a cell phone, but I don't think you remember how to…"

"I'll be fine, love," he said. "You said you'd be at the station. I'm sure one of the good citizens might point me in that direction should I lose my way."

"Of course," she said, hesitantly. "You might want…you should be careful. Storybrooke is a small town but people here are quick to make assumptions. You don't really know them now and they probably will have a hard time getting used to you being back to your old self."

"Have I changed so drastically?" he asked as she crossed into the living room.

"Everyone changes some," she explained. "You have been more of a hero than a villain lately." She wasn't expecting his smile, as she assumed the past version of Killian would have cringed at the news he was a good guy. "Anyway," she said. "I would be careful. It's hard to deal with new memories when they come back. We need to be cautious about who feeds you information about yourself."

"Aye," he said. "You shouldn't worry. I don't tend to listen to people's analysis of my countenance with any convictions."

She left him there, texting Regina that she needed to talk and hurrying toward the station with only a stop at Granny's on her way. If she was discombobulated by Killian's transformation, Ruby's was even more drastic. The woman who could make any clothing look like an advertisement for sex was wearing a baggy sweater and equally baggy pair of jeans that Emma noticed were even sporting an elastic waist. Her face wore no hint of colorful cosmetics and her hair was pulled into tight chignon at the base of her neck. Offering a shy smile, she took Emma's order of a cup of herbal tea to go and presented it to her a moment later without so much as a question or comment.

Emma could only shake her head and travel the sidewalk away from the diner and into the station where he father sat with Archie. Her father was technically her same age, but at the moment he had the face of a haggard and older man. Deep circles were under his eyes and he had the shadow of stubble from not shaving. The shoulder holster he normally wore was loose about his shoulders and the flannel shirt was wrinkled and sported a coffee stain near the center buttons and pocket.

"Go home," she said as she sank into her normal chair and removed the lid from her tea. "I've got this."

Her father gave her a surprised expression. "Don't you have a husband to care for right now?" he asked. "I am glad to see you, but I would think you are needed at home, not here."

"He's fine," Emma said. "No, he doesn't have his memories, but he's wandering around town right now and I'm …"

David held up one finger to Archie and approached his daughter with a little bit of a limp. He waved off her concern about it. "Emma," he said. "Your mother already warned me that you're treating this like Hook twisted his ankle playing soccer. Your husband has lost his memories. He doesn't even remember being married to you. He could have died."

Emma's eyes flashed with anger and sadness as she looked at her father. "You think I don't know that? That man," she continued, pointing at the photo of the two of them on her desk, "has the worst habit of finding danger. In a two month period he has had his heart almost crushed, fell off the ladder at the cottage, and now this. Don't you see it? He's going to end up dead and I'm going to be a widow."

"Emma," David said with a warm but warning tone. "He's had a run of bad luck."

She rolled her eyes. "Bad luck would refer to something like losing money in a poker game," she said. "No, he's a walking sign for life insurance."

"Then maybe you should go home to him and see if you can protect him," David said. "Truly, I have things under control here." He watched his daughter ignore his comments and turn on his computer. "Or you can sit here and sulk. What is it you think you can do to stop whatever this is with Hook? He's your husband, not you child. You have to trust him."

Emma banged out the keys for her password and pulled up Google on her computer. "I'm ready to accept that now," she said through clenched teeth. "I can't protect him or save him. I can't do anything to stop whatever it is that is going to kill him."

Her father looked back at Archie and said something low and unheard by Emma as she banged out more on her computer. The tall man left, shooting a sympathetic look at the blonde sheriff. David was just glad he hadn't offered a free counseling session. Pulling a chair over, he turned it around backwards and sat facing her, his arms folded on the back of it and his chin nestled in the crook of them. "Is there some threat I don't know about?" he asked. "Some danger that I should know?"

She shook her head. "Isn't there always?" she asked. "No, I don't have a name for it. I don't know what it is, but something will happen and I'll be alone." She frowned. "I'm always going to end up alone."

"Emma, you can't think like that. Killian is resilient. He's a fighter. He's fought for you and beside you in every battle since you met him. He's done everything in his power to get that honor. Why are you acting like it isn't enough?" David flinched at that speech, even his optimistic nature as a royal prince from a fairy tale did not soften the blow of defending the pirate who loved his daughter.

"Sometimes it isn't enough," she said. "I'm not enough. He's not enough. We can't keep relying on luck and stupidity from every villain."

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Looking up divorce attorneys," she said, flaring her nostrils at the computer screen. "But then I just remembered that this damn town doesn't exist on the Internet. Do we at least have a phone book?"

"Emma," David said warningly. "You don't want to do this."

"Do what?" she asked. "Admit that I made a mistake in trusting that life isn't going to screw me over? My mother and father may believe in happy endings, but I don't. I don't believe they exist for regular people. I didn't grow up with this. I grew up in a world where people lie, cheat, steal, and get screwed over by fate and karma because that's how life treats some of us. So just shut up and hand me a phone book. I need to do this. I need to erase it…"

Rising from his chair, David reached for his daughter rather than the phone book she requested. Pulling her up and to him, he cradled her head against his chest and felt her sob into the warm flannel. "You can't erase it, honey," he told her. "You can't erase what you share with him. He's going to remember. He's going to remember how he feels about you and how feel about him. He won't let you erase that."

Grateful for the chance, David held his daughter and briefly saw himself holding her as a child who fell while play, a toddler having a nightmare, a teenager having her heart broken for the first time. She rarely did this. So he relished it, letting her tears soak into him and her fists beat against him as she cried. He hoped it would work, but when she pulled back, he could see in her eyes that it had not.

She crossed the room to a dusty bookshelf and pulled off the phone book. Her sleeves serving as tissues to wipe her eyes, she flipped through and pointed to the name of the only lawyer in town. "I guess that's him," she said. "Let's get this over with."

***AAA***

It was a surprise to nobody that Killian ended up at the docks. He had told his crew for years that the sea called to him. No matter how long or short the respite he took on land, he always craved that sea air and soon found himself sailing away from any and all his problems.

He'd learned little on his walk other than Granny held some sort of grudge. Most people nodded at him or even offered a friendly hello. It was disconcerting to say the least. And even his foray toward Gold's shop had found him fighting strange urges to destroy the building to nothing more than a pile of embers. Emma might have said he changed, but he felt that need for revenge growing in his very soul. She had said the Dark One was vanquished, pushed out of town by his own wife. The idea made Killian smile, but he wanted his own crack at the man. How could he have traveled all this way to fail again?

What was left of his crew – Mr. Smee in particular – had been of little help. They only explained that they were now trapped in this town with no means of escape. He had grunted at that news, not wanting to be sitting in a trap when the Dark One would again raise his head toward its inhabitants. No, he would plan and plot.

The wind was at his back, whipping the dark hair on his head and stinging the skin of his neck. He looked back toward the town, seeing the quaint village that had missed his first entrance because of Cora's cloaking spell. How could he have stayed here so long, lying in wait for a man? He had few doubts that Emma was a part of that. She could drive a man to distraction, intoxicate him with her smile, her scent, and the touch of her hand. But marriage? That made less sense than his supposed failings with the Crocodile. No, he had to ignore that, forget her and move past the feelings that bubbled just under the surface when he saw her.

He would get his revenge and then he would see to Emma. That was how it should be.

_**I've been updating quite a bit today since I have some time off. Thanks for the song recommendations SunnyCitrus10. I have been listening to Latch, as well as a little Christina Perri and Colbie Caliet today. I had not heard Thinking Out Loud before, but that is an awesome song!**_

_**Anyone else have any suggestions? Let me know in your review. **_


	6. Chapter 6

David toed off his shoes and socks, yanking at the buttons on his shirt as his wife fussed over their son and the music from upstairs in the loft wafted down over them. Belle had been up there for about two hours, her respite from the outside world was a collection of CD's that Emma had given her a year earlier.

"She's going through with it, isn't she?" Mary Margaret said, offering her son a pacifier. "I can't believe this. You would think that after everything, she'd be smarter about this."

David yanked a shirt over his head, and ran his fingers through his hair to tame it. "I talked to her, but it didn't do a bit of good. She's determined and convinced that this will all end badly. So she thinks that ending it herself will mean that she won't hurt as badly." He shook his head. "She thinks she is being smart."

His wife sighed, placing her infant son in his crib. "What's Hook going to think when he gets his memories back and she's divorced him?" she asked. "It could destroy him. She is his entire life."

"You're not telling me anything I don't know," David said. "Have you talked to Regina?"

"No," she said with an exasperated sigh. "Regina spent all day today working on a potion to get Ruby back to normal. And then Marco threatened to fit her for her own casket. It was ugly and she's not answering phone calls."

David nodded, looking over his wife's shoulder as he embraced her from behind. "There has to be something we can do," he said. "Maybe I should go talk to him."

"You think she'd let us?" Mary Margaret leaned back, her head resting on his chest. "I'm not sure we can get to him."

"She let him wander around town today," David said. "Oh she kept track of him, but he was out and about. Maybe we can fix it so I can go see him."

***AAA***

She had seemed unworried and almost comforted to find him at the apartment when she arrived. Though he could see the somewhat fresh tracks of her tears, she had smiled and told him that he must be starving. Dropping her coat on the barstool, she scurried about the kitchen, crisscrossing as she sorted ingredients and utensils in an orchestrated dance.

"Modern women truly do it all," he remarked when she stopped for a moment to gain her bearings. "You have been occupied at your job for hours now and yet you find the energy to make dinner as though you were a traditional wife," he said. "Impressive."

She rolled her eyes, lifting a lid and waving her hand to take in the scent of the tomato sauce. "Consider yourself lucky, pirate," she said. "I'm in a cooking mood today. It rarely happens twice in the same day."

When he did not leave the narrow kitchen, she frowned at him and his probing eyes. She did not choose to chastise him, deciding instead to hand him their dinnerware and pointed him to the glass table from that morning. "Nobody stands around in my kitchen," she said with her hands on her hips. You have time to lean, you have time to clean. Or set the table at least."

"Forgive me for saying, but you seem to be in a good mood," he said as she gave the pot of sauce a final stir. "I am not used to such levity from you." He carefully placed the plates and silverware, frowning only slightly when she handed him a bottle of beer for himself and a glass of water for her.

She busied herself pouring the sauce over the pasta and testing the bread she had put in the oven. Watching her through the corner of his eyes, he saw her precise movements and the perfectionist in her as she tested each item. "Dinner," she declared as she served both of them and returned the pots to the now cooling stove. "It's not much, but it will do."

"You're a bloody wonder," he said, tasting the food. "Impressive."

"So you said," she said. The tears that had fallen earlier from her eyes were hardly cleansing. And after a 45 minute discussion with the town's only lawyer, she was feeling somewhat stuck in her situation. A divorce, he told, would take both of them consenting. That meant she not only would have to face Killian's desires in the situation but possibly lie to him even more to convince him that a split was necessary.

"I see that the former two years has not changed your propensity toward evading a compliment," he grumbled. "That's all it was, dear, a compliment."

Swallowing a sip of water, she lowered her eyes. "Thank you," she said formally. "Is that better?"

"It will do," he told her. "Mind a few more questions?"

She wiped her hands on her napkin, sighing sharply. "I assumed you would have more once you got out for your wandering," she told him. "What do you need to know?"

The beer in his hand tasted weak and almost sour, but he took another swig any way. "The Dark One has been vanquished?" he asked.

She chewed thoughtfully. "I guess that's one way to put it," she said. "The town line here in Storybrooke is infected with a powerful magic. Should a person cross it, they lose their ability to see or even find this town. They are unable to return. And the best we can tell, it would leave them in a land without magic with no real magical abilities. Belle commanded him to cross the line after she discovered some of his most recent activities, including stealing your heart."

"So he cannot come back here," he pondered, mimicking the way she twirled her fork in the pasta.

"I guess I'm afraid to say never," she admitted. "Never say never, but as things stand now there is not a way. He's no threat at the moment." She cleared her throat. "I wish…"

He looked up from his plate when she did not complete that sentence. "What is it that you wish?" he asked.

She blushed, tipping her water glass toward her and drinking in the clear liquid. "I wish I'd gotten ahold of him," she explained. "To see you there with your heart just moments from being crushed by him…I could have strangled him."

His tongue poked at his cheek from inside his mouth as he evaluated her words. "Such anger for my plight from a woman who plans to dissolve our marriage?" he asked. "I'm not sure I understand."

Her breath was ragged, as though she had almost laughed. "I'm the sheriff and considered the savior of this town and its people, including you," she said. "I would have been angry at Rumpelstiltskin doing that to anyone."

"Aye," he said, returning his attention to his plate. "I do remember that about you, love. You have a big heart and a tendency to want to save the day."

Later, as he lay alone in the bed that she said was his, he turned her words over in his mind. She was an interesting woman, one who kept him guessing. Her smiles were often followed by a shake of her head and some pointed comment that left him wondering how they had come to share so many of the adventures she had told him about over the past few days. In her relaxed moments she would accidentally brush against him, lingering before remembering something that drew her back with the face of someone entrenched in fear. When she had cleared their dishes after dinner, he had complimented the meal again and felt his heart thud oddly when she had merely smiled at the sink full of sudsy water. Her voice had been sweetly quiet – not something he expected from her – as she told him that she had made it because she knew he loved it.

Eyes closed and one arm folded over his head, he listened to the wind that blew against the windows and the sound of Emma tossing and turning on that couch. She refused again to take refuge in the bed, telling him that she was due up early in the morning and did not want to wake him. He considered for a moment that he might go out there to her, but he could not come up with a reason that might be suitable. So he listened and tried to imagine her there.

Rolling to his side, he buried his face in the pillow that lay next to his. His eyes flew open at the scent of her, a sweet fragrance that he had breathed in earlier as he stood next to her at the sink. The warm water splashing him, he had felt the berry and flower mixture of what she had said was not perfume but body wash assaulted him with a warmth he could not remember from before but still felt familiar. Taking in another breath the attar was unmistakably hers, but she had said she never slept in the bed. How was it that he could feel her there?

"_It's perfect," she breathed, curling her arms around his waist and smiling with her shoulders raised high. "Don't you think so?"_

"_Aye," he responded, his own arm finding its way around her. "Perfect for us." He chuckled as she reminded him not to let the realtor know of their desire for the home, telling him that they were interested only if the price was right. He wondered who else could want it, as the place was sorely in need of repairs. Within an hour their offer was accepted and she was already lining up contractors to talk to about renovations and repairs._

"_We'll stay in an apartment until it's ready," she told him one morning over breakfast at her parents' loft. "I need my own place." Her voice was barely above a whisper, but he wondered why she bothered with secrecy since her mother was singing in the shower, the prince was bouncing a babbling baby up and down to tell him what a good boy he was, and Henry was playing some video game where he was in the midst of a war zone. _

Emma groaned aloud, attempting to curl herself into a comfortable position. Her back ached and her neck stiffened from the awkwardness. A car's headlights splashed across the window and briefly bathed the room in light. She squinted into it, staring at the closed door to the room she called her own. He was in there asleep, his limbs that had once twisted with hers were now splayed out on the sheets of their bed. She considered getting up and finding refuge in her son's bed, but that seemed be a worse solution. Henry's bed was a temporary frame and a lumpy mattress that squeaked and groaned with each move. The couch, as soft and malleable as it was, was more of a comfortable option.

"Bloody hell," she heard from the bedroom.

Of course he was awake, she thought, her eyes trained on the ceiling. He would probably emerge in a few minutes, wanting to see if she was awake. She prayed she wouldn't be awake for him. His questions, though sensible, were hard to answer without their trademark bluntness. Her father and mother were hard enough, texting and calling her just to listen or let her vent. She didn't want to vent. She wanted to be done with this.

"No," she said to herself when she heard him pad toward the bathroom. "You don't want this to be done. You want him."

_**A/N: Don't you wish that the characters on this show and others would just talk to each other sometimes? I'm trying to keep with that theme.**_

_**I hope you are still reading and enjoying. Thank you to all who have followed, favorited or left a review. I smile and give myself a high five for each one. **_


	7. Chapter 7

_**Eight reviews since I posted this morning deserves a reward - Here you go.**_

Killian might not have remembered or knew every establishment in Storybrooke, but he did know the road that led to the town line. He had been there before, hiding in wait for the Dark One and Belle to come along. So with all the talk about the town line being this dangerous barrier, he was determined to see it for himself. Trudging along the road, he passed the buildings and houses until they became wider spaced and eventually non-existent. Cars no longer headed in this direction, as there was no reason for them to do so. Eventually he arrived at the spray painted divider that separated Storybrooke from the rest of the world.

He stared at it for a long moment, contemplating the idea of stepping over the line himself. He knew it no longer worked the same way as it had before. A man crossing the line would retain his memories. From what he had picked up from conversations around town and from Emma, the biggest threats were that such a move would rob one of his magic and of the ability to return to Storybrooke.

"I'd be on equal footing with the bloody Crocodile," Killian said to himself, the toe of his boot tracing the bold outline. "I could kill him."

It was an attractive thought, an enticing one that he had been mulling over since he first heard that the Dark One had been pushed into the oblivion of a world without magic. With a steely breath, he prepared himself, but he did not take that step. He might not remember it, but he obviously had some sort of tie to this little town in Maine. He had a wife. Perhaps he owed her at least a goodbye before he made such a move.

"Emma," he said, with a hint of resignation and annoyance. "I should…" He jumped as he heard a clap of thunder, but the sky showed no indication of a storm.

"_There's not a day will go by I won't think of you."_

"_Good"_

Turning on his heel, he walked away from that line, but not away from his plan. His mind danced with the ideas of confronting a powerless Dark One. He could hear that coward's voice in his own head, pleading and shaking with fear. He wasn't all that sure what the world out there looked like, but he was sure it could not be any worse than anything he had seen so far in his travels. Even the idea of finding the Dark One in some vast realm did not intimidate him.

As he arrived closer in town, the road narrowed and more people appeared, not on shoulder of the road, but the sidewalks that ran on both sides in front of the small shops and restaurants. Some nodded at him and others avoided him all together. While contemplating where he might find a drink, he saw her golden hair. She kneeling by a car, looking at something he couldn't quite make out. She looked up at some man with an exasperated expression that he knew well. She stood, wiped her hands on her jeans and pointed in the opposite direction toward what read to be a garage.

He moved toward her, unable to keep the smile of recognition of his face. It felt a bit foreign to smile in the midst of a day without some dark thought tickling his brain. He noticed she smiled back at him, flipping her hair back over her shoulder with the backs of her hand.

"You finding everything okay?" she asked, standing in front of him. She shifted her weight, squinting as the sun shone brightly on her face.

"I'm skilled at navigation," he told her.

She nodded absently, studying his face for a moment. "Would it be too weird if I wanted to know where you went today?" she asked, offering a tight smile to help wash away some of the awkwardness. "I do wonder sometimes."

"Just a walk, love," he told her. "You?"

"Work," she said with an even tighter laugh. "Breaking up fights, clearing up the mess from a car accident, figuring out who ran over a mailbox, and chasing a guy down who skipped out on a check at Granny's. It's been a busy day so far." She shifted her weight again. "I was going to check on you. I meant to come by and see…"

"You have been occupied."

"I should have made time," she said, then shook her head. "Have you eaten? I haven't and was thinking that I might get a sandwich at Granny's. We could do that together." She rolled her eyes, but it was not directed at him, rather herself. Here she was a grown woman who was standing in front of her husband nervously asking if he wanted to share a meal with her.

"I would be remiss to turn down that invitation," he said, following her across the way to Granny's.

She found them a place to sit amongst the crowd and told him to wait as she made her way to the counter to place their order. It would be faster, she told herself. It would also be fewer moments that she would have to see him looking back at her with every emotion mirrored in his blue eyes. It was easier.

She slid into the booth and folded her hands in front of her. "We don't usually have this problem," she said after recognizing the silence. "Talking hasn't been a problem. You seem to want to talk about everything and anything."

"I'm not sure what I should say to you," he admitted. "I don't know…"

"What's been said or done," she finished for him. "I get it. I didn't have my memories for a while. So I know how it is to feel that way." He looked at her curiously. "Well, it wasn't exactly the same. I was given fake memories so I didn't even realize that I couldn't remember."

"That must have been frustrating," he said as their drinks were slid in front of them. "I can imagine it would make you…"

"I didn't know for a year," she said. "In addition to not knowing people or situations or even who I really was, I had these fake memories in my head. It was like a giant lie that I believed. The thing I hate most in this world is lying." She frowned at her glass of juice. "I hate it when people lie to me. I hate it when I have to lie…"

"The truth is an imperative facet to any situation," he echoed. "Have I ever lied to you?" His voice seemed unsure and soft in contrast to the boisterous traffic of the diner. She could have pretended that she didn't hear it.

"Through omission," she said.

He nodded as though he understood and knew his own faults in the situation. "Did I have the good grace to apologize for those omissions?" he asked.

"You did," she confirmed after a pause.

"Good."

She took another sip, turning her head to watch the people at the counter wave down waitresses and shout to be heard. Each was another display of determination for a plate of meatloaf, a sandwich, lasagna, a grilled cheese, or a cup of soup. "I need to talk to you," she said, her hands trembling. He noticed the trembling and she buried them under the table. "It's about the legal documents. Our divorce."

"I'm afraid I am unfamiliar with such measures in this realm," he said. "Could I possibly ask for your guidance on it?"

She closed her eyes. "I think it should be fairly simple," she told him. "We just have to sign some papers. That's all."

He sat thoughtfully for a moment. "And after we sign these papers," he said, testing out her words. "We will no longer be married?"

"That's right," she said. "You will be a free man." She tried again to smile, but the trembling of her lips was evident.

"I wasn't aware I was a prisoner," he said as the food arrived. "Have you been chaining me up again?" The smirk was back, the expression that made her want to slap and kiss him at the same time.

"Rarely," she jokingly admitted. "I just mean that you and I will both be free to live our lives without this," she waved her hand in the air, "hanging over our heads. You can get yourself settled here if you want. Date. Or you could find a way back to the Enchanted Forest and your ship. I'm sure that would be a priority for you." She broke off a bite of the sandwich and drew out the stringy cheese.

"And you?"

"Life will go on here for the time being," she said. "The beauty of being a sheriff is that there are always laws being broken and my help is always needed."

"I thought that travel between the realms was an impossibility," he said.

"It is, I suppose," she said. "But you've done it before. I'm sure we can find a solution. You must miss it there." She frowned again. "There isn't much for you here now, is there?"

Later that night he heard the floor as it creaked slightly with the approach of someone close to the bed. He was partially awake and could feel her eyes burning into his skin, taking in the hills and valleys of his exposed skin and muscles that the light sheet did nothing to hide. Almost afraid that any movement would spook her and send retreating to the other without him, he remained in the state of feigning sleep. As she walked closer, her body blocked the streams of moonlight that shone through the windows. Her breathing was heavier than he had ever heard it, struggling to stay within her chest.

He felt as she kneeled before him, her knees resting on the yellow and white rug at the side of the bed. Her hand reached out touching his stubbled cheek and caressing it softly. The smooth, coolness of her hand left a burning on his skin, as it traveled down from his check to his neck and chest. She left her hand there for a moment, feeling the quickening rate of his heartbeat under his skin. His hand moved to capture hers, as if by reflex caressing her long slender fingers in his own larger hand. Though it was still dark in the room their eyes met and locked on each other. Each pair searching for permission, guarantees, or promises that couldn't be spoken aloud.

Lifting his shoulders off the bed, he positioned himself closer to her. His face was inches from hers and his nose drank in the intoxicating smell that accompanied her. It was as if she was able to transform him into someone other than himself. He had kissed many girls and women in his life, some were good and others not. Yet the moment his lips connected with hers it was as if the kiss had been electrically charged. All of his other senses now came alive with sensations that he had never assumed possible. His skin tingled with new found nerve endings. The way she sighed rang in his ears like music from a harp.

He couldn't control himself or the actions of his hand. It moved on its own accord and pulled at the thin straps of her satin nightgown, removing it from the skin that he ached to touch. She didn't pull away from him, but instead seemed to encourage his actions with her sighs and moans that echoed in the silent apartment. He could see by the light of the moon that every inch of her, the raised flesh of her own scars – much fewer than his own. She was malleable to his touch, conforming to his will and need. She soon adjusted herself to be closer to him, allowing him to lower them both to the bed. Her silky hair brushed against his arms and chest as it fell over her shoulders, engulfing them in a blonde tent.

Suddenly and unmistakably, he was squinting in the glow of a light that had come on seemingly by itself. Shattered into the bright confines of reality, Killian opened his eyes to see Emma standing before him with her hand on the lamp. "Sorry," she said to him, smiling apologetically. "You didn't seem to want to wake up."

He groaned in frustration at the thought of being awakened from such a dream and then in embarrassment. "And why did you want me awake?" he questioned, opening only one eye to her.

She laughed nervously and perched herself on the very edge of the bed. "You were making a lot of noise in here," she explained. "I could hear moaning and thought that you must be in a lot of pain. Are you still feeling sore from the explosion? Do you need a pain pill?" Her hair was loose about her shoulders curled sloppily without the aid of her brushes and dryer. All he could really focus on were her long legs that were almost completely visible.

"No," he answered quickly.

"I'm sorry. I'll leave you alone then." She stood up slowly after leaning over to pick up a pillow that had been discarded in Killian's tossing and turning.

"I'm sorry that I woke you," he announced. He had pulled himself to a sitting position and pulled the blankets up from where he had kicked them down in his sleep earlier.

"I wasn't asleep," she admitted shyly. "I couldn't sleep and thought that you might be having the same problem."

"Is insomnia a frequent difficulty for you?" he asked, reluctant for her to leave.

"Sometimes," she admitted. "If I have too much on my mind it can be hard to sleep." She breathed deeply, pulling her legs up onto the bed and tucking them under her. "Do you know the best night of sleep I ever had was back in the Enchanted Forest?"

"A modern woman such as yourself found solace in that realm?" he asked, almost teasingly.

"The ogres and other dangers are not my favorites," she admitted. "But there was one night when we went back in time…We had just found out that my mother was alive and everything seemed to be back on track. We were all camping out beside a fire and it was just quiet and peaceful. I slept the whole night through without waking up once. Maybe I was just really tired."

"It must have been lovely," he said. "After all, you remember it so fondly as your best night of sleep."

"Do you have some place or memory like that?" she asked. "Where do you sleep best?"

"I'm not sure I've ever stopped to consider it," he chuckled. But his laughter cut short as she stood up in an attempt to go. "Emma, since we are awake here and probably not going back to sleep any time soon, why don't we try that container of whatever you have in your cold machine. It was labeled mint chocolate chip ice cream?" He wiggled his eyebrows at her with mock questioning. It made her giggle at his silliness.

"So you have been exploring the freezer have you?" she asked, mocking her own disapproval. "I hid that behind half the contents so Henry wouldn't get into it."

"You've caught me," he said, pouting a bit. "So what do you say? I think I might like something that you went to such trouble to hide."

She folded her arms and pretended to think about it for a moment. "How about I get the ice cream and bowls. You get the spoons?"

"You've got a deal."

_**A/N: It is a rainy Sunday here and I'm curled up under a blanket while my husband and kids are out running errands. Maybe I can get another chapter up for you soon. Please let me know what you think – reviews and suggestions help me work a little faster. **_


	8. Chapter 8

The canvas bag over her arm swung as she knocked on the door to the loft. Hearing her mother's voice calling out to her from the other side, Emma opened the door and stepped inside. "Emma's delivery service," she said, holding the bag up for show. "Diapers for my brother."

"You're a life saver," Mary Margaret said, swooping over to grab the package and kiss her daughter's cheek. "He's got a fever and I couldn't take him out in that wind."

"No problem," Emma said, peering at the fussing baby in her mother's arms. "He's worth the effort."

Mary Margaret pointed in the direction of the kitchen. "I'll be right back. Help yourself to some coffee or Danish. David dropped that off earlier before I realized I'd run out of diapers."

Emma slid out of her coat, leaving it draped over one of the chairs and cut off a square of the sweet goodness on the counter. "I shouldn't do this," she said. "Killian and I went through a whole tub of ice cream last night. I can barely move today."

"Sounds cozy," Mary Margaret said from behind the partial wall of her bedroom. "He's settling in, then?"

Emma licked some of the icing off her finger. "He's trying," she said. "It's got to be hard for him. I don't know if I could face life in a whole new time and place without someone helping me to figure it out."

"Like he helped you a few months ago?"

"I still had my memories," Emma protested. "And that was different. It was just temporary."

Mary Margaret emerged from the bedroom, a freshly diapered and dressed Neal in her arms. "Emma," she said, carrying the baby over to the counter where his carrier was sitting. "You are a wonderful daughter with a heart that wants to help everyone you encounter. You'd give the coat off your back to help someone who was cold. It's something your father and I admire about you. So you wanting to help Hook isn't that strange. Be proud of that trait."

"Oh God," Emma said, looking at her watch. "I don't have time for this conversation."

"What conversation?" Mary Margaret asked innocently. "I'm not sure what you mean."

"The conversation where you tell me to hold off on my plans to divorce him because he needs me," she said. "The conversation where you tell me not to give up on what we have because true love means never giving up. The conversation where you try to convince me to go back to the apartment right now and tell him that the reason I can't sleep at night is because I dream about him and wake up feeling like crap because he's not there beside me."

"Oh," the brunette said, pouring herself a cup of coffee. "That conversation. I guess I don't have to say those things because you already know them."

"Exactly," Emma said, turning to the sink to wash her hands. "I already know that I…"

"You already know you love him," Mary Margaret finished for her. "You were standing in this very kitchen when you made that realization a few months ago. I seem to remember you were arguing with me when you realized it, practically bowled me over in an effort to leave, and ran straight to him. We didn't see you for two days after that. And when we did, you were attached to his side and not leaving it for any reason."

"I'm not the one who lost my memory," Emma protested. "I don't need a trip down memory lane."

"Fine," her mother said, throwing up a hand in surrender. "So where is your husband today? How does he keep himself busy while you run around saving and helping everyone in town but yourself?" She ducked her head at Emma's heated glare. "Sorry."

"He was in bed when I left," she said. "We were up kind of late eating the ice cream."

"Not to sound like Ruby or at least how Ruby used to sound," Mary Margaret said, "but are you insane? You left a hot guy in bed alone?" She smiled. "That was very un-Snow like of me. I was trying to sound like Ruby. Did it work?"

"It might have scarred me," Emma said with a short laugh. "I don't want my mother calling my husband hot."

"That wasn't easy for me."

"Good," Emma said, cutting off another piece of the sticky Danish and then staring at it like it had done that itself. "Because if you go full on Ruby and ask me about my sex life, I may have to make an appointment with Archie." She bit the Danish with anger.

"Your father and I are worried about you," she said. "And we're worried about Hook. Drop the look. We have come to like him. So yes, we worry."

"There's nothing to worry about," she said. "We'll get our divorce. We'll find him a way back to the Enchanted Forest. I'll move on and so will he. We're too different."

"More different than a shepherd and a princess?" Mary Margaret asked. "So much different than a mermaid and a prince?"

Emma rolled her eyes and popped the last bite into her mouth. "You don't have to go through the whole storybook." She washed her hands again, leaned over and kissed her brother's forehead, and stalked over to where she had left her coat. "Mom, I am not like that. I'm not…"

"Emma," she said. "In your own words, I'm not having this conversation with you. You are in the book yourself – with Hook. I get that you're scared. Almost losing him so many times has scared you. You want to be in control so that it doesn't hurt so badly when something bad happens. Believe me. I understand."

"Goodbye," she said, sliding the coat back on over her shoulders.

"Don't mistake control for hiding," she called out to her daughter. "They aren't the same."

***AAA***

Henry unlocked the apartment door, kicking it shut with his sneaker. "You're here!" he called out to Killian, shocked to see him.

"Where did you think I'd be?" Killian laughed as the boy launched himself to embrace his stepfather. "Actually I'd like to know that. I have taken more walks than I care to admit and I still don't know what it is that I used to do all day."

Henry pulled away and grinned. "You used to hang out with my Mom a lot," he said. "You were always bringing her lunch to the station or hanging out with her on a stake out." Glancing down at the table, Henry saw the atlas that they had found going through some of the items in his grandfather's shop. He and Killian had secreted away their find, brushing off the dust and carefully combing through the pages that seemed so fragile under their fingers. Emma had thought them silly with their fascination with the book, but the two enjoyed the task. Practically each page resulted in some story or tale from Killian's past. Henry ate them up.

"_We surely thought that was the end," Killian told the wide eyed boy at his left. "They were outnumbering us and had many more weapons. But you never met such a fearless group of pirates as those on the Jolly Roger."_

"_What did you do?" Henry asked, breathless as though he was facing the enemy too._

"_Why we charged straight into the fire," Killian told him proudly. "There is no stopping my crew when we set a determined course."_

"_So they are just as stubborn as you?" Emma questioned from her spot on the couch where she had been reading. Killian and Henry had both noticed that she had not turned a page in the past half hour, as she was secretly listening to their exchange. _

"_I am patient and persistent," Killian corrected her. "I waited for you, didn't I?"_

_She wrinkled her nose and pursed her lips. "You were stubborn and wore me down."_

Henry smiled up at Killian. "Any luck on remembering?" he asked. "I promised Mom that I wouldn't ask, but I have to know."

"No, lad," he said slowly. "I haven't made much headway there."

Henry dropped his backpack on the couch and sighed. "There has to be something that will help," he said. "Did you look at any more of the photos?"

"Many times," Killian admitted. "They are nice portraits, but none of it is familiar."

Henry nodded. "Videos," he said suddenly. "We need to show you some videos. I know there is one from the wedding. There's another one that I shot with my new camera at the party for my Uncle Neal. I think you are in it too. I'm sure…We need videos."

"What matter of weapon is that?" Killian asked, confused by the boy's words and terms. "How does one shoot with one?"

"It's not a weapon," Henry explained. "It's like the pictures, but they are moving and have sound. Like the television."

Wide eyed, Killian watched the boy tear through the living room, pulling down stacks of DVD's from the shelves and returning them when they weren't what he wanted. "I know they have to be around here somewhere," he announced several times. Yanking at a set of books with red spines, he saw what he was looking for behind them. A white cardboard envelope sat there with warnings against folding it or exposing it to x-rays. "This is it."

He dropped the package into Killian's upturned hand. "Watch that," Henry said. "It will help. I know it."

Nodding, the pirate rotated the item in his hand. "And how might I go about doing that?"

"On the DVD Player," Henry explained, pointing again at the entertainment center. "I'll set it up for you before I go. My other mom's waiting on me. I just needed to get a few things."

Henry bounded for his bedroom, stopping short. "Do you remember anything about that book?" he asked, pointing at the open volume on the table. "It was sort of a thing with us."

Killian smiled apologetically. "I fear I don't," he said. "I was attempting to gain my bearings. This realm is not familiar to me at all."

Henry's hopeful face fell. "I didn't think so," he said. "We don't use maps around here much. Mom always preferred a GPS. But maybe…" He turned back to the shelving unit that lined the wall in front of his room. "Here. This might work." He pulled down a spiral bound copy of maps that he remembered his mom had carried in her car when she drove him back to Storybrooke from Boston when he first met her.

"Maps from this world?" Killian asked.

"Yeah," Henry said. "New York, Boston, all the major cities are in there. We can't really travel to them, but it's good to know they are there."

Henry ran into his room as Killian looked at the colorfully detailed maps from the modern atlas. Maps were his trade, but these were startlingly different. He was running a ringed finger over the shoreline of some land called New Jersey when the door rattled again. Turning his head slowly, he realized it was a light knock that repeated again.

Walking toward it, he heard a soft voice talking to someone with soothing words. Pulling it open, he saw the face of Snow White looking back at him. "Milady?" he said, unsure to take the smile on the woman's face. She had never smiled at him in his recollection, usually reserving her severest expressions for his comments and winks.

"Killian," she greeted. "It would be polite to ask me inside since I have a baby and the temperature has dropped six degrees since I started getting ready to drive over here."

He shook his head to clear the confusion, waving his hooked arm toward the great room. "But of course," he said. "I'm just surprised."

She scurried inside, the hood of her jacket falling as she did. "I should have called," she said. "But I wasn't sure you'd know how to answer the phone so I decided to take a chance."

"Grandma!" Henry said, rushing to the woman and hugging her free side. "You brought Neal!"

"He's doing a little better," the woman said, lifting the carrier proudly. "It was probably a mistake, but I felt like getting out for a while. Where's Regina? She sent you over here?"

Henry brushed off the questions and helped his grandmother lift the carrier onto the counter. "I've got to go," he said, hugging her again. "I just wanted to stop by and see if Killian was here and get some of my stuff. Can we maybe do another dinner soon? The whole family?" He smiled brightly at her, a trick he'd learned from Emma.

"Of course," she said. "You pick the day and the menu. I'll cook." She pressed a kiss to his forehead and pulled his skull cap down so that it covered his ears. "Go! Regina's going to freak when you're late."

Henry was out the door, letting in a sharp breeze that rustled the pages of the atlas. Killian reached for it protectively.

"Getting acclimated?" Mary Margaret asked. "You know that there are people here who are going through similar things. They weren't a part of the first curse. So it's hard for them to go from chamber pots and horses to indoor plumbing and cars."

"I don't know that I've met them yet," he said.

"Actually Aurora is one of them," she said, sitting down in the leather chair. "I suppose you remember her from the Enchanted Forest."

"Aye," he said slowly. "I took her heart for Cora."

"You also gave it back," Mary Margaret said, waving her hand as if to wash away the ill feelings. "I didn't come here to talk about all that. We can't change the things we have done or said. What matters is the people we are now and who we want to become."

"Milady, you are talking to a man with no memory of who I have become," he said. "I'm not even sure that I want those memories." He glanced down at the atlas again, reading off the foreign names in his head. Finding the Dark One might be a bit more complicated than he planned. Hundreds of pages detailed cities that were large enough for a map, but what about the smaller towns. How could he find the man?

"Why would you not?" she asked. "You've become a hero. You've fallen in love. Those are good things."

His eyes raised to meet hers. "Have I?" he asked. "Emma tells me that our marriage is counterfeit, meant only to serve some purpose of tricking others. That does not sound like the actions of an honorable man or a man in love."

Mary Margaret frowned. "She's scared," the woman admitted of her daughter. "She is frightened."

"Of me?" he asked. "She fears I will hurt her?" Disappointment marred his features. He had sensed many things in her, but fear of him was not one.

"No," the woman said with a sad smile. "She worries that she'll lose you. I see it in her each time she says goodbye to you. Each time you leave her for even a moment there is a cloud over her. When she realized that Gold had your heart, she was determined to get it back in you, but afterward…She came so close to losing you and it hurt her."

"She's never…"

"She wouldn't," Mary Margaret said. "She's not a woman who makes loud pronouncements or grand gestures. That's just not her."

"But you know?" he asked. "How?"

"I'm her mother," she answered, as though that explained everything. She knew her daughter, but there were still too many moments of confusion and shock that she had a grown daughter instead of the beautiful baby she'd held for only moments. "She pretends to be fine even when she's not. You see through that though. And that scares her too."

"She wants me to leave her," he said, shaking his head. "I don't remember being with her, but the thought of leaving her…"

Mary Margret watched him stumble upward, his hand raking through his hair and then down his face in search of something familiar and comforting. "She wants you to be safe and happy," she said. "She thinks that the best place for you might be the Enchanted Forest on your ship."

"My ship," he said, disbelieving.

"Killian," Mary Margret said. "My husband and I have not always trusted you or been your biggest allies. We have doubted you, tried to ignore you, and prayed to Heaven that our daughter would find a different man – a better man. I'm not going to lie to you about that. You being a pirate is something that took a lot of getting used to, and we probably will always be a little wary. But you have fought for Emma against every foe, against us, against yourself. You have loved her when she wouldn't let anyone come close to her. You have encouraged her when the rest of us had our heads in the sand."

"You have good reasons," he said, leaning to look out the window at clouds building over the water. "I've little in the way of assets that would dissuade your distrust of me."

Mary Margaret cleared her throat. "I don't like admitting that I'm wrong, so despite memory potions and magical spells, I'm asking you to remember this moment. I'm apologizing. I'm asking you to stop my stubborn daughter from making a mistake. You two belong together and God help me, I'm going to make sure my daughter gets her happy ending."

"She doesn't think it is with me," he protested.

"She does and it scares her," Mary Margaret said. "You've broken through that before. You got her to marry you. We thought you'd have to tie her down to get her to walk down that aisle, but she did it of her own volition. You can break through this again. You can make her listen to you."

He shook his head. "I can't," he said to her. "I can't."


	9. Chapter 9

Killian stood in an empty living room and considered her words, feeling his heart tearing at the thoughts. She had told him of his sacrifices and Emma's struggles to balance life as a mother, daughter, savior, princess, sheriff, friend, and wife. That struggle was real to him, a tangible feeling that he had himself. He did not wear all the hats she wore, but he could still relate to the clashing priorities.

His own mother-in-law had provided him with one by telling him that in this world he was a loving husband with a wife who needed his encouragement. He did not want to hear that. He did not want to think of Emma reaching out to him for anything without him being there to return it.

But he owed to Milah. He owed it to himself to finish the Dark One once and for all. If he left, he could not return. Emma would not come with him, as her life was there with her boy and her family. She might not think that he wanted to be there, but maybe part of her did.

He glanced at the video package that her son had left him, but the idea of trying to battle technology was bigger than he was at the moment. He glanced at the clock and realized he had hours before she was scheduled to return. Like a child waiting until his parents' car had just driven out of sight, Killian took off for the bedroom and began rummaging through the drawers of the dresser. He wasn't sure what he would find, but searching for treasure wasn't a foreign concept to a centuries old pirate. Her lingerie wasn't exactly all that telling, but he did spend a moment considering it. There was plenty of varying stages of lacey translucence, some relatively new with tags and gift wrapping still intact. Another drawer was his, but he was good enough at this to know that he would find few answers among his own underwear. T-shirts offered some clues to her past, names of bands, movies, and funny sayings fading and cracking on the thin material.

He pondered for a moment that clothes in this realm were certainly different than any he had traveled to before. Yet again that did not answer any of his questions. A drawer of leather bound volumes caught his attention next, as it appeared she had given him space for his journals and maps that from the freshness of the pages were recreations of drawings he had painstakingly done over the years. What value they held in these more modern times confused him, but one in particular stood out.

Pulling it off the top of the pile, he flipped through the thick pages of his scrawling notes on modern technology. He had detailed his understandings of cell phones, televisions, electricity, computers, and more. There was even a page dedicated to something called an xbox. Amongst his notes were other observations, including ones about Emma. Her love of hot chocolate with cinnamon, an affinity she had toward leather jackets and books, her tendency to lick her lips after they kissed, were all noted with meticulous details. According to the dates, he had been noting these observations for a while. Though personal in nature, the details were not intrusive. Rather they were the musings of a man trying to understand the woman he clearly loved and admired. Was she even aware of this, he wondered.

Making a mental note to come back to this book, he continued his search. The other drawers held interesting trinkets, but nothing worth spending much time on at all. He skipped to the living room where he found movies – quite a few about pirates – and books that had colorful and well-worn covers. He didn't want to go through her son's room, thinking that an invasion he wasn't ready to face.

This wasn't boding well. Either she had hidden nothing from him or she was much better at this than he was at such games. His head began to hurt, perhaps karma for his fib to her earlier. That tiny white pill she had given him the other was supposedly a medicine specifically for such pain. Perhaps she had left the supply of them out in the bathroom, he thought. Hoping he might be able to identify the bottle she had been holding, he set out in search.

The layout of the apartment was a simple one. Two bedrooms with a great room that combined a living, dining, and kitchen area. Each bedroom had its own bathroom, though Henry's also was accessible by guests. A set of two large closets lined the walkway to the master bedroom, but Killian had noted that Emma had removed the doors to both closets to make it more of a walk in feature. Strolling past the closets, his eyes focused on a bag that lay almost hidden behind some of her longer garments. He dropped to his knees and parted the dresses and coats to pull the bag out along the wood floor. It clinked with the sound of glass and metal, heavier than a bag should normally be in his mind. She was a meticulous housekeeper. So the idea of an unpacked bag was suspicious at least. He pulled back the zipper and looked down at the plethora of contents that haphazardly spilled out. Framed photographs, most containing both him and Emma were the first things he saw. His smiling face, hers, shared kisses, more from their wedding, a few of him with Henry, him with her mother and father, a growing pile of vaguely familiar situations. There was even one with Granny, both of them laughing and pretending to choke each other behind the counter at that diner.

He dug past the framed photos and pulled out other items that she had packed away. There was a dried rose, flat from having been pressed between the pages of a heavy book. A folded piece of paper with his own handwriting asked her to meet him for breakfast after she woke up that morning. A newspaper clipping of her efforts against the Snow Queen with his own face in the photo was next. He stared back at his face, not recognizing the look of admiration and love that was so evident in the way he was looking toward Emma. Others were there with them, but he recognized only a few. Promising himself he would read the article later when he had more time, he cast it to the side and dug down deeper into the satchel. Despite outward appearances, Emma appeared to be a sentimental woman, which did surprise him.

The final item in the bag was one he recognized immediately. A black cloth still smelling vaguely of rum sat folded at the bottom of the bag. He had tied it around her hand himself, the memory of the event clear in his mind. At the time it had been the closest she had allowed him to stand to her without major protest, a moment that he had seen both the surprise and softness in her own gaze back at him. She kept this, he thought to himself.

Ignoring the pain of the headache, he held the cloth in his hand and tried to figure out why it surprised him so much that she might still have it. From her descriptions of their time together over the past two years, she had spent most of it away from him or pushing him away. It made no sense to him.

The apartment was feeling claustrophobic and he stumbled toward the door, grabbing his jacket on the way. He needed air. He needed something more than mementoes of times he could not remember. The diner was crowded and recognizing his mother-in-law's car out front, he jogged away toward a quieter block. He found himself at the library.

The last person he would expect to smile at him was Belle, but when he walked through the library doors the petite young woman beamed at him. He looked over his shoulder to see if someone had followed him in, but he was alone and she had smiled.

"Hello," he said uncertainly.

"Captain," she answered. "It is good to see you. You look healthy."

"Aye," he said, following her gesture and continuing to walk behind her to a table by something labeled the research section. "I've never felt better."

She nodded, pulling out a chair for herself and motioning to the other one. "From what I hear," she said, leaning forward with her eyes narrow and her hair falling over her shoulders, "The recovery from having your heart replaced is almost instantaneous. But you've had the bad luck of the explosion too. How is that going?"

"Still missing the memories of the past bit," he said, thumping his own head with a finger. "I don't rightly remember the incident with the heart, but I hear tale that you were of some assistance in that. You ordered the Dark One to drop it into my hand?"

She frowned at the memory. "He had no right to take it or to do those things to you," she said. "His motives…It doesn't matter. You have it back. He's out of our lives and we're all safer for it. So what can I help you with today?" She smiled at him again, her head tilted slightly in concern.

"I've been trying to place and fathom some of the information I've been gathering," he explained. "The details of the Dark One's actions were quite troubling."

Her face fell, eyes dropping to her folded hands. "He's gone," she said. "I don't know how that information will help you at all."

He watched her get up from the chair and wipe away some invisible dust from the books lining the shelf at eyelevel. She was intent on the task, frowning when she did not succeed with the first try. "He's gone," he echoes, "But you must still worry."

She turns to face him, her hand still gripping the shelf. "I can see how others would worry," she agrees. "But he wouldn't hurt me, not physically anyway." She returned to her task.

"Good point," he told her. "You still have the dagger, don't you? You could always control him."

Her eyes flash and her head whips back to him again. "I hate that dagger," she told him. "It's just another one of his evil toys meant to destroy lives."

He pretended to agree with her, listening for any clue in her complaints about it.

***AAA***

"You get a sitter?" Emma asked her mother, sliding in across from her.

"Your father's with him," her mother answered. "I couldn't stay cooped up and the baby's feeling better, so I dropped him off at the station. Where have you been?"

Emma pulled a menu out from behind the napkin holder, studying it much like a student before a final exam. "I had an appointment," she said flatly. "Little late for lunch?"

"You're the one ordering from the menu," her mother reminded her. "I'm just having some coffee and enjoying people watching. I've also got my book."

Emma nodded, motioning for a waitress and placing her order. "I got tied up and it's still hours before dinner." She pulled the book from her mother's hands. "Really?"

"It's not literature, but it's entertaining," her mother said with a flushed face. "Oh don't give me that look."

Emma thanked the waitress for the water and laughed when her mother suggested they go for something stronger. "I need to stay sober right now," Emma declared. "You haven't heard the latest. Marco showed up here last night declaring his love for Granny. He even serenaded her."

"She called the cops?" Mary Margaret asked, staring incredulously at the older woman ringing up someone's order.

"No," Emma said. "I didn't get a call from her. Instead it came from Marco's neighbor, who was scared when Granny was chasing that old man through his workshop this morning with her crossbow."

"Regina needs to fix things," Mary Margaret suggested. "People are nuts."

Emma nodded again, sipping on the water in front of her. "Speaking of which," she said. "I guess I was a little nuts this morning. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped or run out like that. You're worried about my situation with everything."

"You were upset," Mary Margaret said, pulling at the crocheted cap she wore over her dark hair. "I can understand not wanting me to pry or act motherly. Just know we love you and want you to be happy."

Emma took another sip and nodded her head. "I know. I'm trying, really."

_**A/N: Thanks for the feedback guys. I hope you are still reading and enjoying. I've written a couple of chapters ahead so that I can keep posting at good intervals. Let's just say I made myself cry in an upcoming chapter, but it will be good - I promise. **_


	10. Chapter 10

She brushed the snow off of her shoulders, climbing the stairs toward the loft. She could already hear her husband's mellow tone mixed with the fussy baby upstairs. Unlocking the door, she paced over to them, kissing both on the cheek and then settling her packages on the counter. "I think I should concentrate on economic development as mayor," she said with a sigh. "We need more shopping options in this town."

"Mmmmhmmmm…" David said, twisting his body at the waist to rock the baby back and forth. "Sounds good."

"Does it?" Mary Margaret asked, her hip flexed and eyes watching him. "Because I seem to recall that you were going to go see Hook today. You didn't, though. I did."

David sighed. "I know that's what we decided, but honestly I didn't want to butt in on this. She's our daughter, Snow. We have to take her side in this."

"Even when she's being an idiot?" the woman asked pointedly. "Our daughter is in pain. She's going to be worse when her plan works. Do you want to have to find another portal so we can drag him back here because she won't quit missing him? I sure don't. Do you want to have to explain to him that we sat back and watched because that's what our daughter said she wanted and then changed her mind?"

Neal fussed, a tiny fist waving in the air. David jostled him a bit. "We shouldn't interfere," he said. "She's a grown woman who is capable of making her own decisions."

"You say that now," Mary Margaret said. "But what about when she's here crying over him? What about when Henry asks why he left and why nobody did anything to stop him? Do you have those answers? Because I don't." Her hand slapped against the wooden overhead cabinet. "I want our little girl to be happy."

"Why can't we just wait for her to figure it out?" he mused, resuming the back and forth motion with his son.

The door opened again, Belle stepping with her hands rubbing against each other for warmth. "I'm sorry," she said, blushing. "I didn't mean to interrupt."

"You didn't," David told her, carrying the baby into the bedroom.

Mary Margaret's face softened as she greeted their house guest, offering the woman cup of tea while she started dinner. Belle gratefully accepted and helped put away some of the items that had been bought.

"You're worried about Emma?" she asked when David had persuaded to run out to the store for some fresh eggs, as Mary Margaret had forgotten to pick them up. "About her and Captain Hook?"

Holding a spoon over the bowl, suspended in mid-air, Mary Margaret paused for a moment. "I don't know how much you know," she said. "And I don't want to violate my daughter's privacy."

Belle sipped from the pink teacup and nodded. "I understand," she said. "I had a visitor today at the library. The captain came by to thank me, he said. But I believe he was looking for information. I think he may be considering going after Rumple."

"What?" Mary Margaret asked. "What makes you think…"

"He was asking questions, lots of them," she said. "He wanted to know about the dagger, specifically. I think he plans to use it to destroy Rumple."

Mary Margaret dropped the spoon onto the counter and grasped the corner of the cabinets with both hands. "Oh God," she said. "It makes sense. He isn't the Hook we know now. He's back to thinking like he was two years ago when all of his energy was focused on killing Gold. Why didn't I realize?"

Belle lowered the teacup to its saucer. "He has every reason to hate my husband," she said. "Milah, the hand, the blackmail, the heart, all of it. He's got every reason."

"He has every reason to move beyond it. Just like she can't run and hide from everything that makes her happy, he can't live on nothing but a diet of revenge. I thought that we were past this."

"Then what do we do?" Belle asked in her thick accent. "How do we help them?"

"I don't know that we can," Mary Margaret admitted. "We may be too late."

***AAA***

Emma's eyes were bleary and her body twisted in knots as she walked into the apartment and threw herself onto the couch with an exaggerated groan. He was seated in the more comfortable leather chair, his booted feet resting on the coffee table and Henry's atlas open on his lap. She opened one eye to watch him, noting the way his lips silently moved to read the names of ports and cities he'd never heard of before. He traced them and sounded them out to commit each one to memory.

"Planning a trip?" she asked, bending one leg over the other so she could pull off her tall boots. They fell to the floor with a sharp thud. "Unfortunately travel agencies aren't really big business in a town that nobody can leave."

He chuckled, folding back a page in the book to mark his place. "I wouldn't know where to start," he said. "Love, I wish you hadn't started undressing already. I was hoping that we might go someplace tonight." He smirked at her torn expression, the one that begged to let her fall asleep there with a bag of microwave popcorn and the other half that ached to be on his arm at some party of restaurant.

"You made plans?" she asked, sinking her socked feet under one of the throw pillows and stretching in vain.

"I just thought out would be nice," he said. "An outing where we could enjoy some of the fine life of Storybrooke."

She lifted her arms over her head, lacing her fingers in her stretch. "What about pizza and Netflix?" she asked, giggling at his confused expression. "Don't worry," she told him when his confusion melted to annoyance. "You never knew what that was before you lost your memory either."

"If it is preferable to you, I would enjoy it," he confessed. "What shall I do to make it happen?"

She grinned, reaching into her pocket and finding the name of the one and only pizza delivery place in Storybrooke as one of her favorite contacts. She called and ordered, the smile never leaving her face as his bewilderment over words like pepperoni is evident. She pointed him to the linen closet and explained that with movies come blankets and junk food. In the 30 minutes before the pizza arrives, she moved the table aside, dragged in all the pillows she could find and built up a wall against the foot of the couch. Taking one of his blankets, she spread it out on the floor and motioned for him to take a seat. She left him there to dig in the refrigerator and pull out soda, beer, and from under the cabinet a bottle of rum that she had kept hidden.

"You are proficient at this, love," he told her. "I take it this is something you enjoy."

She laughed and told him of a certain foster mother who used to spread a sheet out on the floor with air popcorn popper in the middle. All of the children tried to catch whatever they could from the lidless popper, resulting in many more giggles and laughs than actual eating. He wasn't sure what such a device was, but the fact that she smiled when talking about it made him a fan.

She answered the door and dropped the pizza in front of him. Telling him she'd be back in a minute, she scampered into the bedroom and changed into a pair of black sweat pants and a burgundy hoodie that advertised for some self-defense course she had taken years ago. She was pulling her hair into a ponytail when he walked in and grinned.

"I feel overdressed," he said to her.

She looked at his shirt, vest, and tight leather pants. "I agree," she said. "Maybe there is something in here." She dug through the drawers he had searched earlier and found a dark pair of sleep pants and a t-shirt for some obscure band. Tossing them to him, she smiled. "Comfort before fashion."

He joined her a few minutes later, picking out a spot next to her and gratefully accepting a beer that he clinked against her bottled water. She proposed a toast to new experiences for him and then waved the remote control in front of the television. "Is this like a DVD Player?" he asked, eliciting a curious look from her. "Someone mentioned one, but I don't really know what they are."

"I could explain or we could just watch the movie," she said, reclining back on the pillows and bending her legs up in front of her. "I think you'll like this."

She pointed to the light next to the couch and asked him to turn it off. By the time he sat back down the movie had started. He limited his questions, enjoying both the story of _The Goonies_. She pause it at one point to run to the bathroom and when she came back, he was sneaking another piece of pizza, which she had already claimed as his own. "Unfair!" she declared.

"Pirate!" he challenged back. She reached for the triangle of cheese and meat, stretching to steal it back from him. He grinned at her, holding it just out of reach. She pouted and went up on her knees to gain better access, but he leaned backward and dangled it just above her hands. "It's mine now, love."

"Five minutes ago you didn't even know what pizza was," she said, smacking his arm with her hand. "Now you're stealing it from me."

"I might negotiate," he told her. "What do you have that I might want?"

Her brow furrowed and her mouth became a straight line. "I want that piece of pizza," she said.

He kicked the box lightly with his foot. "There are two other slices in there," he told her, still smirking.

"But that one has the most pepperoni," she reminded him. "I want it."

For a second he looked contrite, lowering his arm and a fraction and moving the prize toward her. At the last moment, he pulled away and took a bite of the pizza. "It is delicious," he told her. "Very cheesy."

She lunged forward, tackling him back into the wall of pillows she had built and knocking the wind out of him. She was between his legs, her hands pressed palm side down on his chest and her chin just below his rib cage. His mouth gaped open at her, unsure if he should laugh or call for help. "Don't tease me with that pizza," she warned him with a snarl.

"You're a bit of a pirate yourself, aren't you," he said, lowering his hands and rubbing the edge of it to her mouth.

She bit into it, pulling back and taking the slice with her. "Thank you," she told him primly as she nibbled on the lukewarm pizza. "You've given me a few lessons when no one was looking."

He readjusted himself to a sitting position, finding her still perched between his legs. Hesitating only a moment, he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her to him so that her back rested against his front. She stiffened, but didn't pull away. "Perhaps we should watch more of this Netflix," he said near her ear as he reached for the remote to hand to her. She nodded, still not moving away from him. The movie began again, filling the room with adventurous children and teenagers in their quest for treasure. She giggles at parts, which he can feel against his chest just as the sensations of his infrequent chuckles reverberate against her.

Part way through the movie the pizza box was emptied and his arms, that went from resting at his sides to propped on his raised knees to now loosely wrapped around her middle. She has relaxed marginally and her head now lolls against his left shoulder. "Henry's going to hate that I watched this with you," she told him. "He wanted to be here for it."

"I'll be good and pretend I've never seen it before," he told her, his voice somewhat muffled by her hair.

"Our secret," she said. When he was quiet for a longer stretch of time than before, she craned her neck back and met his eyes. "You're not watching the movie."

"Sorry, love," he said, but his eyes didn't leave hers. "I'm a bit in awe that you would be in my arms without protest."

She laughed. "I think we moved to that stage a while back," she admitted.

His hand met hers then, thumb running over her long fingers. A look of interest crossed his face as he lifted her left hand into the soft glow cast by the television. "Such beauty," he mumbled.

"My hand?" she questioned, tilting her head back in confusion. "Really?"

"The rings," he clarified. "They aren't what I would expect."

She pulled her hand away, studying the rings herself before dropping it back down to her side. "You picked them," she said weakly. "Actually, you designed them. I found out after you proposed that you had gone to a jeweler and drawn out what you wanted. I think you were proud of that because you told me three times after you proposed." She laughed and then caught herself.

"I proposed?" he asked. "Swan, what aren't you telling me. First you tell me that we were wed in the Enchanted Forest due to some legal ramifications or something. Then you admit that we were wed again here in this town, but play it off as though it was just for show. Yet I have found portraits of that wedding ceremony. My darling, that wasn't just for appearances. And now you tell me that I proposed to you?" He pushed her up, whipping her around to face him. "What the bloody hell are you doing?"

She looked downward, her chin dipping to her chest as her eyes fluttered shut. "Killian," she said with a breathless sigh. "I…"

"Perhaps I should give you time to get your tale together," he said. "I wouldn't want you to have to revise this again."

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I'm so sorry."

"Emma," he said, startling her by using her first name with anger. "I don't know what pleasure you were attempting to gain with this little farce, but I'm not amused. I don't remember the truth of our union, but I'm doubting its potency with your inability to even acknowledge it." He struggled to his feet, leaving her there on the blanket in front of him. She trembled as he went to step away.

"Don't," she said. "You want the truth? Fine, I'll give that to you. You can hear it and then go. I know I've ruined it, but you at least deserve to hear what you're walking away from here."

_**A/N: I split this chapter in half because the confrontation about Emma's lies needed more attention. It was a hard thing to write, but don't worry. I'm still all about happy endings. **_

_**Thanks to my loyal readers and reviewers. There are some interesting theories going on right now. **_


	11. Chapter 11

_**This is a shorter update, but I didn't want to leave you waiting for it. Enjoy a little angst on this Monday.**_

He stood and leaned over the lamp, blindly reaching for its switch. "I'd prefer to see your face when you lie to me," he said bitingly. "I should have looked closer before, seen your tells."

She stood up too fast, losing her balance in the process of staggering to her feet. He reached out to steady her, but pulled his hand back quickly when it was clear that she was fine. "I'm sorry," she said again. "So sorry."

"You've said that," he said. "It's established that you have apologized. Now tell me what the bloody hell is going on?"

She frowned and bit into the tissue of her lip. "We are married," she said as though it was the brunt of her confession. "Eight weeks before your accident. We got married on the beach with about half the town watching. It was pretty rushed and to be honest I don't even know how we pulled it off. You proposed on a Sunday and by Saturday I was walking down the makeshift aisle."

He offered no response, alternating between staring at her and the door. Not a good a sign, she thought.

"We'd just been through so much and I guess we were still in that let's celebrate being alive mode," she said. "I don't know how long you planned it. I don't know what you were thinking. You and I were walking back from Granny's toward my parents' place and I said something about maybe getting my own place. I asked if you would move in with me and you said you were too much of a gentleman for that."

He narrowed his eyes, appraising her words, but still he didn't interrupt her.

"We joked that my father might come after you if we did move in together," she said. "I think he might have actually scared you a bit with one of his talks. Then you did it. You reached in your pocket and pulled out a ring – this ring. I can't repeat what you said. It was all a blur and the next thing I know we're kissing and I'm wearing the ring and we're telling everyone we see."

She twisted the rings with her free hand, rotating them and turning them against her skin.

"It wasn't a sham," she said in a whisper. "I loved you. I love you."

He exhaled sharply, turning from her and stalking toward the bedroom. "Why the lies?" he asked, as he reached the door.

"You almost died," she said. "Three times in a matter of weeks. There was the heart thing. There was an accident at the cottage we bought. And then there was this accident at Regina's. Three times I almost lost you."

"So your answer was to lie to me?" he asked. For a moment the harshness of his voice and the anger in his face fade to show something she is familiar with from her childhood. It is the face of a rejected child, a child pushed aside for someone younger and cuter. It is the face of someone who will later push those feelings aside and convince himself that this is just what he deserved. He did not have that same experience, but she saw the rejection seeping into him and boiling up from every part. She almost sobbed at the recognition.

"I was protecting us," she said. "At least that's what I told myself. I was thinking that maybe it's me. Maybe I'm the reason that you keep getting cursed, hurt, and almost killed. Maybe if I wasn't in the way, you could be safe and on your ship far away from me and everything that hurts you. I'm not worth all this, Killian. I'm not. You don't need to put yourself at risk just to be with me when there are a hundred other women who would…"

"So you chose for me, for us," he said. "You felt that your love for me was more dangerous than a bloody pirate ship? Do you know how that sounds?" His hand braced the door frame, leaning against it for strength.

"It wasn't my best plan," she admitted. "And I'm sorry."

"So you said. What about the divorce?"

She swallowed, her face blanching in his scrutiny. "I was doing it to force you to leave," she said softly. "I didn't want you to stay out of obligation and then get yourself killed in the process. I didn't want you to lose you that way." Her sobs were more like hiccups, her words cracking in the air. "I had the papers drawn up and picked them up today. They just needed our signature."

He nodded with understanding. "And you've signed?"

Her head dropped again. "No," she admitted. "I didn't. I couldn't." She blinked back the tears that stung her eyes. "I couldn't."

"What does that mean?"

"Killian – I was scared," she said softly. "I was scared and I reacted."

He frowned at her, snarling almost. "You were scared," he repeated. "People who are scared beg for what they need or want. People who are scared fight back. They don't lie. They don't hide from the world." He shook his head. "You didn't trust us, did you?"

"I trust you," she told him. "I do."

"No," he said sadly. "I don't know what I felt for you. I don't know how it was between us, but I what I know now is that you didn't trust that it was real or that it would last. You were trying to prove that you were right and that I would leave you like everyone always has before. You were so desperate to be right that you threw away what we had because you didn't trust it."

"Killian," she whispered.

"If you trusted us, you would have told me the truth," he said. "You would have fought for me and for what we had and could have."

She shook her head violently, pushing out the doubts that were plaguing her. "I'm…"

"I know already," he said sadly. "You're sorry. You apologize. You've learned your lesson. We can start over. I don't even have control of my reminiscences and those are recurring tomes for us, aren't they, darling."

She swallowed, looking up. "So what do we do now?" she asked.

He shook his head at her dejectedly. "I don't know the answer to that," he said. "I suspect that you are just waiting on me to walk out that door." He pointed with his hook at the door of their apartment. "You expect that this is an unforgivable sin to me. Maybe it is. Maybe there isn't a coming back from this."

"I don't blame you for feeling that way," she said.

"You shouldn't," he replied. "You…I…Words are failing me here." He almost looked amused at himself. "If what you have said tonight is true, I must have loved you beyond anything I've ever felt in my life. That you found it so fragile and so easy to discard is wounding." Walking toward her, he saw the steely determination in her eyes that he had seen before; the coolness of her façade was nothing compared to this. He lifted her chin with his hand, searching her eyes for any indication that she was still lying. "This memory loss leaves me at a disadvantage. I don't remember the degree of my affection for you, but I can assume it to be great if I chose to bind my life to yours. And I have seen glimpses of yours for me."

"I do love you," she said. "I do." The words could have sounded desperate, but they didn't. It was a simple statement of a woman who wanted him to know.

He closed his eyes. "I think I believe that."

_**I hope that did justice to the situation I've created in this story. I struggled over it, wanting her explanation to make sense and his reaction to seem real. Obviously it isn't an easily forgivable thing, but I think that he would understand her fear better than she is giving him credit for...Thoughts? **_


	12. Chapter 12

Her eyes were red from crying and her face blotchy as she sipped the juice out of the glass. All night shed waited for that door slam, his footsteps to become fainter and her life to once again become a shell. She had not slept at all, her muscles aching for the comfort of her bed.

When she heard him, he had already been awake for a few minutes and was shuffling toward the living room. His eyes were almost as bleary as her own and his hair lay messily over his head. He approached her carefully, sliding into chair across from her and rubbing his hand across his face. "You didn't sleep," he said a bit hoarsely.

She shook her head, and stared down into the glass as though as it might have offered her the words that didn't quite want to come out. "You get mad when I apologize," she said. "And I don't know what else to say to you other than to apologize."

He dipped his head curtly. "Emma, perhaps things aren't as dire as we seem to be acting like they are," he said. "I'm not condoning your lies, but I am trying to understand." She blinked back at him, her voice silenced as he rummaged in his pocket for his flask. "You weren't doing it to hurt me or to destroy anything." He took a swig and swallowed the burning liquid. "Don't you have to be at work today?"

She wiped under her eyes with the heels of her hands. "I called in sick," she said quickly. "I'd be more of a hindrance than a help today. And it gives my father a chance to be in charge." She looked up to meet his gaze. "Or I guess I could go in though. You probably don't want me hanging out here all day."

He cleared his throat and recapped his flask. "Perhaps we should use the time to figure out how this new normal works. We can't go on like this." He waved an arm around. "You need rest. Otherwise you'll make yourself ill with everything…"

She stood up and cleared the table, washing the few items by hand and then turning so fast that she had to grip the countertop for balance. "I think you might be right about the rest," she said. "You didn't get much either."

"I'm used to it," he said. "I have fought and won great battles on only an hour or so of slumber."

"Sounds like school," she laughed. "I used to study all night for a test at school because I was never the type to read ahead or prepare along the way. I was a crash and burn girl." She stopped her laughter short, realizing that it might not be appropriate under the circumstances.

"You can do that, darling," he told her as he walked toward the sink. "You can laugh. I quite enjoy the sound of it."

"Killian," she said after he pushed in their chairs and pointed in the direction of the living room. "I didn't say this last night. I was too busy explaining things, I guess. But I really need to say it."

"Of course," he said, sitting down on the couch. "What is it?"

"I'm glad you're okay," she said. "All of this has been because I get so afraid that something is going to happen to you that I forget to be thankful when you are okay."

His hand clenched into a fist as he looked out the frosty window at the view below. It wasn't an unobstructed view of the ocean, but between the buildings and the trees, one could catch glimpses of it and even better glimpses of some of the boats in the docks. "That's a foreign feeling to me," he told her. "I've not had someone worry about me in a long time."

"I'm not too sure I know how to react to it either," she said. "Both feeling that way about someone or having them feel that way about me." She sat down on the opposite end of the couch and placed her socked feet on the table. "If Henry saw me doing this, he'd cry that it wasn't fair. I always tell him to take his feet down."

"Living dangerously," he smirked. "I should leave you for a bit…so you can sleep."

She looked at him, almost panicky at the words then calmer. "What about we talk for a while?" she asked. "I'm sure you have more questions. I've probably got more to clear up."

"If you think it best," he said. "But don't let me keep you awake."

She smiled faintly, pulling the blanket between them over her and snuggling down. "Can I ask something first?"

He turned his attention from the window and grinned back at the earnest woman to his right. "Aye."

"Why are you bothering?" she asked. "You don't remember much about me. And what you do you remember is not exactly a highlight of our time together. We argued or flirted during most of that time. So now you've woken up to find out that two years have passed, you're a different man than you remember and I'm a different woman. You find out that you're married and that we're…well whatever we are. And last night you figure out that I've been lying to you. What makes you stay through that? I figure you would have run by now."

"Would it help to know that I have considered it?" he asked. "I could have, sure. But I'm intrigued by your story, love. I want to know more. I want to know more about you and this life we have here. I want to know more about me because the me you talk about is different than the one I am now."

"You aren't that much different," she said. "You are an honorable man no matter what year you think it is. And the fact that you're willing to still sit here after what I've done says that to me too."

He chuckled at the thought of her calling a pirate honorable. "Love, you won't get anywhere by casting the blame on yourself for your misdeeds. I'm far from an innocent man, myself. I have done far worse than try to shut myself off from the world by telling a few mistruths. Now, when do I get to have my turn to ask some questions?"

She had not pleaded for him to stay last night, telling him more than once she understood his confusion and accepted that her lies had cast a shroud over whatever it was that they had. He believed her contriteness, though common sense told him not to do so. She had offered to go to her parents, find lodging elsewhere, but he did not send her out of the home that was theirs together.

So they talked. He brought out the bag and one by one she looked at each photo, memento, and trinket with him. He'd watched her tell the story of them, not trying to convince him of anything. She told it as though she was telling an old friend how a princess had fallen in love with a pirate. Parts of her tale surprised him, especially when it appeared that she had somehow tamed some of his more carnal urges and replaced them with a sense of family.

He laughed at her stories sometimes and other times sat open mouthed as she described his noble actions. More than once he told her that she must be mistaken. As he stared at a folded photograph of the two of them at her parents' loft, he found himself smiling back at the man in the photo who looked so happy and proud to be there. She was at his side the photo, as were her parents and some woman with long blonde hair in a braid named Elsa. The five of them were obvious caught off guard by the camera. She called it a candid shot. Her parents were laughing, their hands joined and Mary Margaret's head on her husband's shoulder. Elsa's laughter was more demure but still noticeable behind her hand delicately over her mouth. Emma's was beautiful with her head thrown back and her hands gripping his handless arm. He might not have been laughing in the shot, but his face was pure amusement and his mouth open in the midst of some tale.

He turned to ask her about it, but she was asleep. Keeping her distance from him, she was not crossing the imaginary dotted line between them. Her feet had been removed from the table and now sat folded under her, one arm on the back of the couch cradled her head. Without a second thought, he pocketed the photograph and stood over her, tempted to call out her name. He resisted, instead, gathering her up in his arms and carrying her toward the bed.

He was careful, but she woke and for a second panic set on her face. "No, this is your spot," she protested.

"Nonsense," he told her. "You deserve a good rest and that couch does no favors to you."

"Left side," she muttered, already forgetting her seconds ago protest. "I sleep on the left…"

"I know," he responded. "I figured that out the other night because the pillow smells of your body wash." He lowered her to the side of the bed she had claimed and observed her tiny smile when she realized he was right.

Her large eyes looked back up to him as he pulled the covers up over her legs and under her arms. "Thank you," she said. "For staying."

He nodded, hesitating as to what to say to her. She wanted and needed reassurance that he was not ready to give. He wanted that too. "Sleep," he said, settling on the one word.

Her eyes did not close like he thought they would, nor did her hand lessen its hold. "You too?" she asked. "Just sleep."

His breath caught as he looked down at her, eyes already closing and breathing settling. He told himself he would just lay there for a moment, but the moment his head hit the pillow there was not a thing on earth that would wake him.

_**A/N: Originally this chapter was not going to be in this story, but I felt like I was rushing things and decided to add it. **_

_**I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying reading your reviews and private messages. They have been a fun addition to my holiday vacation. **_


	13. Chapter 13

The light over the dining table was blazing bright and created a glow over the atlas that Henry had given Killian. He thumbed through the pages, stopping periodically as a name or place interested him. He only needed a city name; he'd do the rest. Leaving things up to chance was not something that he frequently did, preferring strategy to luck.

Lifting his hand from the page, he placed it on his face, nervously scratching at the hair that few there. It was a habit of his, but he couldn't help but note the sweet scent of her that still lingered even on his skin. They'd slept most of the day, him rising only when the orange glow of a setting sun reminded him that he had not accomplished anything for hours. She was still oblivious to the world, her long legs bent up toward her chest and her hair a silky pillow for her cheek. He smiled to think that it had served as his own pillow too, as despite the wide division between them as his eyes had closed that morning, his own body had somehow moved toward hers during the nap. At one point he woke to find her nestled against him, her face practically buried in his neck and his own face tilted to the crown of her head.

For the first time he could remember – though she assured him it wasn't the first – he fell asleep next to a woman without so much as a kiss or shared space. Sometime during the middle of the day they had rolled into the same spooned ball. Killian was cradling his wife against him, breathing in her scent and feeling the natural way her movements mimicked his. When he breathed in so did she. When he shifted so did she. It was as if they had been sleeping in the same bed for years. Killian breathed in the scent of her hair and sighed. It was a peaceful and content sigh that echoed through the room as his eyes shut again to the world.

He shut the book, glaring at it as though it had shoved those thoughts into his head. He needed air, a brisk walk, a change of scenery, or anything to make him forget for a moment that he did not even know the man he was anymore. But all it took was a glance to the bedroom and he was ignoring that urge. She would awaken and find him gone. She'd assume the worst.

"Why do I care what she thinks?" he asked himself, reaching for his one ally in this situation – his flask. He tipped it one, two, three times, swallowing the doubt along with the rum. The yellow cover of the atlas reminded him of her hair, the golden hues inviting and warm. He saw her when he looked at that cover, but for an instant he saw her with it in her hand.

"_I am thinking of all of us," she told him, slamming the coffee mug back on the table. "Don't you dare judge me!" _

He felt weak as he sat there, remembering the man he had been. The man he had struggled to become – a ruthless pirate – would have bedded Emma Swan and sailed off within hours. He never would have stayed around. But from her tales of his heroism, he'd been on a mission that saved her son with the aide of the Crocodile. He'd had his lips cursed by a witch who knew his weakness was the beautiful blonde woman in his bed. He'd made a deal with the crocodile for his hand to hold that same woman. He'd hidden those facts from her until it was almost too late. In his effort to save her he'd lost his heart. Those were not the act of a pirate. No, they were the acts of a man who valued love over gold and one who had grown soft.

"I might as well work as a fisherman," he muttered to himself. He wanted to break something, to destroy the wall that kept him from fully understanding. He could see that she was a special woman, one he probably had fallen for over time. She'd certainly overtaken the thoughts he'd had since meeting her. But was there nothing left of the scoundrel, nothing of the man who men knelt down to in fear. Nothing of the man who women swooned over and eagerly agreed to share his bed. Had he cast it all aside in the hopes of building this life with her?

His gaze became unfocused as he rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger slowly. Letting go, he looked up and saw his own reflection in the toaster on the counter. This wasn't the Captain Hook he saw, it was a modern man, in modern clothes. He frowned.

"_I think you look great," she said, adjusting his collar. "I know you're partial to leather, but this is nice too. And it will be great since we're going to be out in the woods all day with Henry. You won't have to worry about getting cold or getting it dirty."_

"_I look like your father," he protested, holding up a flannel covered arm. "I'm a lumberjack version of David."_

"_He'll be flattered," she teased. "Besides, didn't you know that girls go for men who remind them of their father?" Her eyes fluttered before she locked her gaze with him. "I'm just saying that you are looking very sexy to me right now."_

"_Love, that is the strangest thing you ever said to me," he chuckled._

Killian shook his head, seeing the scene play out in front of him like that movie thing that Emma was always talking about with him. Had that happened? Was it some weird fashion fantasy? His head was in his hand as she rounded the corner, stopping short as she saw him there.

"Killian?" she asked. "Is everything…"

"You must be hungry," he said, shaking almost imperceptibly to remove the thoughts and confusion. "I could use something."

She stood perfectly still except her eyes that blinked. "Oh," she finally said. "I didn't realize how late it was. I could make us something or we could order…"

"Whatever suits you," he said, gathering the atlas and his other belongings from the table. "You know this realm better than I do." His movements were hurried and he dropped the book from his hand onto the floor twice before he finally gripped it."

"Is that Henry's atlas?" she asked, seeing the yellow cover with a car driving toward some west coast mountain range. "Were you looking for something?"

His jaw clenched tightly, the muscles in his face humming with the pressure. "Just browsing the maps, darling," he said, moving it from in front of him to his side so that it was not so blatantly in view. Still her eyes stayed on it.

"The maps," she repeated dumbly. "I could help you look at…"

"The day that Captain Hook cannot navigate a map will be a cold day in hell," he said, brushing past her into the living room. "Whatever you want to eat is fine with me."

She nodded. "I have some chicken and rice," she said. "Maybe something like that."

"Sounds delectable," he said vacantly from the chair where he was shuffling through a few of the pages of legal pads he had written on while she slept. "I'm sure you can choose something."

Her eyes were still hooded from sleep and her night clothes rumpled. Coming out of the bedroom she had hoped for a smile or an acknowledgement that for the majority of the day he had held her to him, occasionally brushing his lips against her cheek and forehead. She'd heard him whispering her name, soft with featherlike breath blowing on her skin. For a moment everything felt right. She should have known.

Gaining her composure, she walked to the pantry and refrigerator to grab what she needed. Trying not to look in his direction, she busied herself with sautéing in the chicken and veggies that she had chopped and boiling the rice. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she saw him with his head buried over that stupid book, outdated now and hardly worth keeping. Keeping an eye on the food, she set the table and poured them each some water before serving the food on the plates.

"It's ready," she said, barely lifting her eyes from the plate in front of her. He waited a few minutes before he joined her, glowering at the drink.

"I could use something with more power to it," he said, pouring the clear liquid down the sink. "I know you must have something around here."

She did not guide him, but he quickly unearthed a few bottles that had been gifts or she had moved with her when the first rented the place. "This looks suitable," he declared, lifting a half empty bottle from the mix. "Shall I?" He reached for her glass of water to pour it out. She quickly placed her hand over the mouth of the glass to protect it.

"I'll just have water," she said. "But you go ahead…"

"I would have taken you as a woman who imbibed from time to time," he said. "Surely I have not become such a man as to prefer wine to rum or whiskey?" His voice seemed louder, almost challenging to her.

"No," she said. "You haven't changed that much. I just don't have a taste for it tonight."

The meal was practically silent as they both chewed and he finished two glasses of the amber liquid. "Do you want to tell me about it?" she asked with only three or four bites left on her plate. "You can, you know. I haven't always been the crazy woman who lies to you. I used to be a good listener."

"You said we can't leave Storybrooke," he said, broaching the subject. "That the people who were originally cursed have never set foot over the town line in more than 28 years?"

She nodded. "Originally bad things would happen to prevent them from leaving – accidents, car trouble, you name it," she said.

"So why do you have that book of maps?" he asked. She had not seen it when she first came around that corner, the odd way he was sitting. His left leg was bent normally with the chair, but his right splayed out straight as though he had hurt it. His arms were spread too, one resting its elbow on the chair next to him. It was as though he wanted to seem bigger, more in control.

"When Henry and I were in New York," she began, pushing the remnants of her dinner around her plate. "I was working all the time and he was in school, but at night and on the weekends we used to talk about where we would go if we could travel anywhere. It became a game with us. What would we pack? What would we see? How long would it take to get there?"

"And once you were back here?" he asked, his eyes not showing any signs of lightning. "Why keep it?"

"It was something that Henry liked," she said. "Regina has a nice house. She has all the real memories of him growing up. She knows his favorite songs, foods, bedtime rituals. If he says he wants something, she provides it before I even hear about it." She looked away toward the boy's empty bedroom. "Sometimes I would wonder why he would even want to stay here. For a while I even thought that maybe he'd be better off if I just visited once in a while. One of the only things that I have that she doesn't is the fact that I've been to a lot of the places in that book. I haven't just read about them or seen pictures. I've smelled the air, felt the sun, met people, ate the local food, and everything else. She hasn't done that."

He listened carefully to her, but instead of his usual pep talk he offered her nothing. She looked down at the plate again, drawing patterns with her fork.

"Emma," he said, his voice barely contained. "I think I remember something."

_**A/N: That chapter got a little angsty, but it had to be done. I also wanted Emma to open up a little bit on the Henry thing. I usually write her as having a great relationship with him and loving him – which she certainly does. However, I realized that she might have some feelings of anxiety because she doesn't have a lifestyle that provides him with everything he could want or need. So I think she would take pleasure in the fact that she is the one source for him about the outside world. Because other than the adoption, Regina has not been out of Storybrooke or the Enchanted Forest. **_

_**This was also giving Emma a chance to be the care giver in the situation. He's obviously hurting and confused about who he really is and what that means. If she can push aside her pain for a minute, she can be that rock for him. **_


	14. Chapter 14

Emma listened as her father explained the intricacies of the new video system he wanted to purchase, something more digital and less temperamental. She wasn't sure that he'd actually be able to use such a device, but the fact that he was considering it did make her happy. Technology, though certainly miles ahead of that of the Enchanted Forest, was decades behind in Storybrooke. She missed some of those conveniences of her former life sometimes.

"Everything alright?" he managed to ask after telling her that they could record in high definition. "I noticed that you…"

She shrugged and picked up the brochure that he must have memorized. "Just stuff, you know," she said. "Just stuff."

David pretended that was an actual answer. "Well, your mother said we have it in the budget to get some new equipment," he said. "I think we should at least consider it."

She nodded her head in agreement and stared blankly at the glossy photos of mountain streams on the brochure. Why would she need to record such scenes? She needed recordings of places that needed to be secure such as the jail, the library, her mother's office. "I'm going to go for a walk," she said, suddenly dropping the brochure.

David looked a bit startled as she abruptly stood up and grabbed her coat. "Emma," he said. "I'm sure…If the system bothers you that much, I can find another."

"What?" she asked, confused that her father would think her mood was due to a security system purchase. "I'm not sure I follow."

He grinned. "Oh that's not it," he said. "Tell Hook I said hi."

She frowned. "I'm not going to…"

David picked up the brochure from where she dropped it and placed it in the pile of such things he'd been considering. "I just thought you might run into him or something," he said. "Maybe at Granny's?"

"I'm not…"

"I saw him go in there a little bit ago," he continued, ignoring her angry expression and pointing to one of the windows that overlooked the town's main street. "It's almost lunch time and I'm sure that you're hungry and he's obviously hungry so maybe you could…"

She huffed indignantly and stalked away, remembering at the last second to take her coat. He could only smile at his stubborn daughter. Mary Margaret had asked him to talk to her, beg her, to be more specific. But he had not managed to do so without her snapping at him. He knew things were changing, her protective shell getting more than tiny nicks and scratches. The lawyer had called five times yesterday while she was home sick and asked if the paperwork had been signed yet. He'd found it unsigned by either Emma or Killian in her bottom desk drawer. He also noticed that Killian had walked her into town that morning, taking a long time to say goodbye before she walked into work and he wandered off in the other direction.

Glancing toward the window, he leaned over the file cabinet and watched his daughter head straight for Granny's. She looked ready for battle with her squared off shoulders and unmistakable gait.

David didn't see the way her hand shook as she pressed the door open, the bell ringing to announce her arrival. A few of the customers said hello to her or waved from their seats and she gave them a smile and a nod as she walked toward him. He was slouched over his coffee, not actually drinking it but staring at it intensely. She saw no object in his hand, but his fingers ran against each other as though almost caressing an invisible object.

"Hey," she said, choosing the stool next to him. "Did you find anything out over at the docks?"

He jumped, which made her want to smile, as who else could say they had scared a pirate. He didn't seem to be in the mood for it though, and truthfully neither was she. Last night he had confronted her on his first – she assumed first – memory of his time in Storybrooke. Of all things, he remembered part of their argument the morning of the explosion.

"Mr. Smee was moderately helpful," he said, lifting the coffee cup to his lips. "That seems to correspond to my memories of him, an eager but overwhelmed dolt."

"I'd describe him that way," she agreed, then laughed. "Okay not with those words, but I get the picture."

He nodded. "He informed me that the waterways are just as impenetrable as your town line," he said, looking upward as though he could not quite believe the idea.

"You feel trapped," she said sadly. "You feel…"

"Love, I'm a pirate, not a boy to do your fetching," he said. "Forgive me, but I am a bit disgusted with myself that in these two years I've mislaid that drive and identity."

She placed an order with a timid Ruby and asked Killian if he wanted something. He glowered and she ordered him a grilled cheese and side of fries. When Ruby retreated, she reached over and brushed his arm with her hand. He didn't bristle, which she took as a good sign until he spoke.

"Are you desiring something from me, love?" he asked, in a familiar tone.

She blushed, which she was sure he noticed. "Killian, I just missed you," she said. His expression back was not exactly soft, but he did give her a smile before he made some other remark to her about there being other ways to touch him. "I was at work and thinking about how much I miss parts of my old life sometimes and it made me think that it must be 100 times harder for you."

"We could find a way to make it up to both of us," he said. "I'm sure there are some similarities between activities."

She didn't give him a response back, but bit her lip and turned on the stool toward Ruby. Changing their order to go, she grabbed the labeled bags from the brunette and led Killian to the door. "Let's get out of here," she said. "It isn't so cold today."

They wound their way down the docks and chose a bench near some of the boats that had been secured for the season. He brushed the light snow that remained off of the bench and took a bite of the sandwich without too much complaining.

"I wish I could change it," she said, squinting at the winter sun glaring off the water. "I know you miss your ship and the life you had." She thought she saw a hint of wistfulness in his eyes, a taste of the man who had tried to find himself for a year and failed to do anything other than live a shadow life of what he remembered. If he had it to do over, would he still have made those decisions, she wondered. "I'm glad you're here and with me." She caught her windblown ponytail with one hand and laughed. "Wind is getting up."

He nodded, letting her pull the now empty food containers from between them and carry them over to throw away. She looked off to their left and he followed her gaze, wondering what it was that caught her attention on the rugged coastline that seemed to be only dotted with civilization. "What do you see?"

She held out a gloved had to him and tilted her head in a smile. "I think you need to see something," she said. "Come with me?"

He nodded mutely and let her pull him to his feet. To his surprise she didn't let go of his hand. Maybe it was to her surprise too since on more than one occasion he saw her looking downward at their entwined fingers and smiling reflectively. They passed the docks and boathouses on their way, navigating a winding path that she warned was a bit tough at parts with exposed roots from salt poisoned trees that were dying bit by bit as the waves crashed against them during high tide. A narrow band of beach separated them from the water and he wondered if she might have such a destination in mind. Just as he started to ask if she planned on a cold water swim, she veered off the path and headed more inland past a few fisherman shacks and another grove of trees. The path inclined a bit sharply at times and the soles of his boots slid on the unpacked soil.

"It's just up here," she said with a smile. "There's a road to it so I usually take my car, but I thought it would be nice to walk."

He nodded as though he knew what she was talking about. Glancing back over his shoulder he can still see the water through the spindly and thicker trunked trees and smell that scent of salt and freshness that he could swear was in his bones. "This is lovely country," he told her as she slowed her pace. "A fine combination of land and sea."

She might not have heard him, but with her free hand she pointed and turned her expectant face to him. "This," she said, "is the cottage we bought." She waited for him to react. "I realized that I haven't shown you where you were spending your time before the explosion."

He took in a breath and studied the clapboard house that from her previous descriptions he had expected to be falling down around them. It isn't though. There is something warm and inviting about the large front porch and a similar sized balcony overhead. The high pitched roof obviously covered the upper level bedrooms and from a large window he spied at the highest point, an attic that could be converted. She was rattling off a list of repairs that had been done, seemingly by him in many cases. New windows, restored floors, custom cabinets, and more were all on the list.

Taking a step toward the steps to the porch, she pulled back on his hand and he turned to question her. "Can't we go in?" he asked.

"Not yet," she said. "Look over here." Her eyes were wide and excited as she spun them both around toward the water. He could see a path down to it from the rise where the house sat among the trees. But beyond that was where she was pointing. A weathered dock protruded out from the land over the water and a lone sailboat sat bobbing in the waves. It was tied tight and its sails put away, tarps covering most of its surface.

"That's yours," she said. "Came with the house. We made a good deal." He looked puzzled as she explained it to him. "I know it isn't the Jolly Roger or even close to its size, but it's supposed to be a very nice boat. I wasn't sure if you'd remember it or not. Like I said, it's not much."

"You didn't tell me about this…"

She shrugged her shoulders. "I wasn't sure what to say about it," she admitted. "It…she…you always correct me on that, needs some work. You were planning to do that over the spring and summer after the house was finished. We sort of sped up the repairs on the house because…" Her voice faltered. "I just wanted you to see that maybe you don't remember it, but you were making a home here. You were happy."

He was silently taking inventory of the boat, considering its size and capacity. She squeezed his hand. "I'll leave you alone with her in a few minutes, but do you want to see the house first?"

He nodded as she made a statement about her needing to get back to work soon and followed her toward the house. She unlocked the door and walked to the center of the room. It wasn't large by any means, just big enough for a couch and maybe a few chairs around the windows and fireplace that flanked one wall. The heels of her boots echoed on the wood floor that she called original and her voice boomed in the empty space. He did not hear or understand all of her words as she showed him the recently finished kitchen – new appliances courtesy of her parents' wedding gift to them and a dining room with a table just big enough to do some entertaining – a custom piece by Marco. Steep stairs in the living room led upstairs, which she joked were made for mountain goats more than people.

She indicated which room would be Henry's, a space that had been painted in blues and whites, presumably by Killian himself. A recently remodeled bathroom attached Henry's space to another bedroom that she shyly told him wasn't finished yet as she pulled the door shut. Across the hall and toward the front of the house was their room with windows adjoining doors that led to the balcony. She filled his silence with her thoughts on where they could place the furniture.

"It's lovely," he told her, his eyes drifting back to the windows where he could see the dock from earlier. "It appears that I have been busy here."

She nodded, her other hand coming up to her mouth where she tugged on her lip. "There's one more thing," she said. "I'm not sure if…Well, let's just look at it." She pulled his hand tight to her and he followed with two staggering steps until he was at her side. They crossed the hallway to the room she had closed off previously and her hand hovered on the doorknob. "I didn't think I'd have to do this twice," she said under her breath.

As she opened the door and stepped into the space, he followed her without much reaction. She was again in the center of the room, a single but large box stood leaning against the wall but otherwise the room was empty. The other rooms had been stripped of their wallpaper and freshly painted in a palate of neutrals and soft colors to accent the lightly stained wood floors.

She looked at him, expecting a statement a question or something. Nothing was said.

Releasing her hand, he walked the perimeter of the room and touched the flaking wallpaper with his fingers, seeing the layers that had covered each other for years. "Some work to be done here," he said, hoping that would satisfy her look. It didn't.

"We should start on it next," she said. "But I'm not sure what color to paint this room. We won't know for a few more weeks." Again she gave him a pointed look.

"The color is that important of a decision?" he asked, turning toward her.

"Well we wouldn't want it to be too gender specific until we know," she said. This statement did not clear it up for him and he returned his attention to the wallpaper. "I guess we could go with yellow or beige, but that seemed like a cop out."

His fingers delicately peeled back the flowered paper to see a thin blue striped variety underneath. "I'm sure whatever you pick…"

"We pick," she corrected. "After all, this is our baby's nursery."

_**A/N: So I have to give credit to dauntlesselectraheart who first guessed that Emma was pregnant. I tried to give you hints in that direction without having her throwing up all the time or putting her hand over her stomach.**_

_**Anyone want to guess his reaction? **_


	15. Chapter 15

"We," he choked. "We have a child?" His eye brows lifted nearly to his hairline and his hand flattened on the wall as if to hold himself steady. "Why am I…"

She crossed the room to him, holding his arm steady with her hand. "Killian," she said softly. "You need to breathe."

"I don't…"

A grin broke through the concern on her face as she watched him, herself remembering his initial reaction to her news. "Glad some things don't change," she muttered, tightening his grip on his arm. "Look at me."

His blue eyes shifted to her, a pool of emotions swirling. "We have a child?" he repeated. His voice was cracking like a prepubescent boy.

The storminess of his features that she recognized from him upon learning of her deception was again returning to his face. The muscles controlling his jaw tensed and flexed with the strain and the eyes that had seemed wide with wonderment just a moment before were now narrow and dark. She realized the extent of his question. He thought they had a child she had been hiding. "No," she said, gripping his arm harder. "No, Killian. We're going to have a child." With her other hand, she reached out and cupped his face. "Killian, I'm pregnant. That's what I'm telling you."

With one breath out he seemed to have lost a portion of the anger that was brewing, a relief of sorts replaced it. "You're…"

She nodded before he finished the sentence and with a deep breath of her own she let go of his arm and placed her hand over her abdomen. "I found out not long before the explosion," she said. "I told you just the day before."

"I knew then," he said, his eyes searching the room and her for clarity. "I knew."

"Yes," she confirmed, smiling at him tentatively. "You were happy about it. We were standing here in this room when I told you because you were thinking about beds to buy to turn this into a guest room. I told you that would be a waste because I was pregnant."

"Happy," he mumbled.

She backed herself toward the box on the floor. "Your first reaction was that we needed to buy stuff for the baby. You and Henry were searching online and you even went shopping while I was at work. I told you to wait, but you were excited and once you set your mind to something you're pretty stubborn and determined about it. So we compromised."

He looked at her blankly, not fully comprehending the idea of searching for something online or even a father shopping for his unborn child. He did not have a reference for that.

She waved her hands as if to wash that away. "This is what you ended up buying," she said pointing at the box. "It's a crib. We have to put it together, which I dread, but we picked it out that first night after I told you. It was delivered earlier this week." There was little sign that he was any closer to processing this, but she continued searching for something to trigger that same reaction of elation and joy he'd shown the first time. "And this," she added, stepping toward the room's closet. "You bought this while I was at work and brought it to me when you stopped by with my lunch."

The closet door creaked as she opened it and with a little grunt she stood on her toes and stretched to reach something she'd placed back in the corner. Running her hand over its fur, she smiled at it and turned back to face her husband. "You bought this bear," she said, holding it close to her chest. "White because we don't know if the baby is a boy or a girl yet. You were proud of this little thing. It was just a little toy but it was the first thing you bought your son or daughter."

He looked down at it, his hand reaching out to touch it. "You should have told me sooner," he said.

"I know," she said. "Don't think I was trying to hide it. I just didn't know how to tell you that bit of news. Heck it was hard enough for you to know we were married and you didn't have any recollection of that. Telling you that you were going to be a father while you were just grasping the last two year…that might have given you a heart attack." She laughed. "I can't apologize enough that I hid anything from you. I hope you know that."

He nodded, his statement about not wanting to hear her apology singeing his throat. "Is that why I asked you to marry me?" he questioned. "I was trying to do the honorable thing?"

"Killian," she said a little more firmly than she had before. "No, you didn't marry me because I was pregnant. In fact, I wasn't pregnant when we got engaged or married."

"And soon we will have a child," he said, clarifying the information in his own head.

"About seven months from now," she said. She dug into the pocket of her coat and pulled out a folded sheet of paper, its creases already showing some wear from the refolding. She flattened it out, smoothing it with her hand. "Here," she said, holding it out to him to take. "I know you don't understand that, but it's our baby. That blurry picture there in the corner is the baby inside me. And there are some details there about him or her, including when I'm due."

He touched it as though it might fall apart, his eyes glancing over the details and resting on the indecipherable picture. "How do you have this sort of thing?" he asked.

She chuckled. "You are standing there the victim of a memory potion," she said. "A man who has captained an enchanted ship. Your wife only recently discovered that she has magical powers and you're questioning this." Moving closer, she pointed to the paper. "Look at the due date, will you?"

He read it slowly, still not fully grasping the concept.

She patiently explained the timing and that their child had been conceived not long after their marriage. Laughingly she told him that they had both assumed the date to be the day they moved into their apartment, as the over eagerness at having their own space had been a catalyst. He seemed to soften a bit, hearing her so easily describe that this had been something that they had discussed prior to her even knowing. "We wanted a family," she assured him. "We said we would just leave things to chance once we were married. I guess it was meant to be."

His stoic stance melted a bit, but the tentative nature she had displayed seemed transferred to him. Plucking the small bear out of her hands, he held it out from him as though he might buy it again. "I wanted to be a father," he said, marveling at the idea more than questioning it. She did not respond, instead letting him have that moment to settle the thoughts. "I have a hard time with that idea. I'm not a man who is cut of the right cloth for that."

She shrugged, reaching in her pockets for her gloves. "You are an honorable man," she told him, not for the first time that day. "I don't know any other man who would be as good of a father."

His face did not leave that of the toy in his hand. "It must be getting late," he said. "You are due back at your job?"

"I am," she said. "You can walk back with me, or if you like you could stay here. I'm sure you'd like to see the sail boat."

Lowering the bear to rest on the cardboard, he smiled at her for the first time since she had sprung the news on him. "Thank you," he said softly.

"For what?" she asked, confused. "I didn't do anything."

"You told me," he answered. "You didn't have to do that. You could have kept up your plan and I would have never known."

She smiled back, a sad and regretful smile. "You were happy," she told him. "I hope that someday you will be again."

He nodded slowly. "The argument we had that morning," he said. "Was it about the baby?"

She cocked her head to the side and leaned toward the doorframe. "Not exactly," she said. "We were having breakfast and you were telling me not to drink coffee because in your 24 hours of research on pregnancy in the 21st century, you learned that I shouldn't have it. I was annoyed about that and told you to mind your own business." She frowned at the memory.

"You never did like me telling you what to do," he offered.

"No," she said. "I didn't. You were telling me to drink juice and that maybe I should quit my job because it was too dangerous for me. You said I shouldn't put myself or the baby at risk just because the people of Storybrooke seem to not be able to take care of themselves."

"Hapless wankers," he supplied. "I remember calling them that.

"Yes," she said. "I was so annoyed that I said maybe we should just put me in a plastic bubble and ship me off someplace so that no harm would come to me or the baby. You weren't exactly opposed to the idea."

"And I suggested that we be more sensible," he filled in with a sudden gust of information. "I thought you should consider a safer career and you said we could move away from Storybrooke."

"I wasn't totally serious about it, but you thought I was," she said. "We argued because you thought I was running away and abandoning my family and friends. And I thought you were being silly to think that I had to change my life so drastically for this baby."

He closed his eyes, picturing her there in the kitchen with that coffee cup in her hand. She had poured the dark contents into the sink and dropped it clattering into the stainless steel vessel. "I offered to pour you some juice as I apologized," he said reticently. "Something about it being on the list of suggestions from the doctor." He flipped over the paper she had handed him, seeing the scribbling about prenatal vitamins, orange juice, and other items.

She nodded proudly at his one and only memory breakthrough. "Yes," she said. "You poured me a huge glass of orange juice and sat there until I finished it, telling me the ideas you had for baby names. So the fight didn't last that long."

"I wish I…"

"So do I," she finished for him. "I wish you had your memories so you could understand."

_**A/N: I just got back from grocery shopping for my small new year's eve party and came home to a boatload of reviews and comments. Thanks you guys – I wish I could offer each of you a champagne toast. **_


	16. Chapter 16

She managed to get through three reports and respond to a distress call that afternoon after she returned to work. Her father, still confused by her utter disregard for his plans for improvement, had given her space and managed to not upset her when he snuck glances to see if she was okay or not. In the one time he'd asked how she was, she had answered, "lighter," which only made him more confused. She knew she would once again be dinner time conversation at the Nolans' table.

She'd managed to find time for dinner with Henry, telling him that he could come back to the apartment any time he wished. His half smiled how about tonight made her laugh and she reminded him that his school work and books were at Regina's. Maybe the weekend made more sense. Regina picked him up a few minutes later and Emma picked up her two slices of her favorite pie from Granny before heading back out front.

Shifting her car into gear, she pressed her foot down and drove past the businesses that had either already closed or would be closed soon. She paid them no mind as she rounded the curve toward the apartment and wondered for what was probably the ninth time that day if she should arrange for the moving truck to take their stuff to the cottage now or wait a few more days until the final punch list items were complete. From the soft glow of the lamplight through the curtains, she could tell that Killian was there. Part of her wondered if he would be, given that she had provided him with a new distraction of the boat and probably scared him into seriously considering running.

She was part way up the sidewalk to the building when she heard the cracking sound behind her as though someone had stepped on twigs. Spinning around she caught no glimpse of anyone. Her heart had already started to race though and her hand reached for her service revolver that she still had fastened. Long minutes passed as she carefully eyed her surroundings, searching for any sign of anything that might be out of place. Finding nothing and feeling the bite of the cold weather, she turned and walked up the sidewalk toward the front door of her apartment.

As she fastened the lock behind her, she began peeling off the wool coat that had taken the place of her thinner leather jackets. Her feet were killing her and she was imagining stripping down to her socks and a pair of soft pajamas before curling up and watching something trashy and not at all cultural on television. She thought she might even have some popcorn left in the pantry.

Stopping short in the living room, she saw him there with his head propped up on one arm of the couch and his feet dangling off the other end. One arm dangled and his hand was brushing the rug that she had purchased the day after they moved in there. His other arm was bent over his stomach and an instruction manual from the boat was on his chest. Chuckling, she leaned over the back of the couch and lifted the manual off of him, unable to resist a quick stroke of his cheek. Thankfully it did not wake him and he merely settled into his sleep a little bit better.

She took herself into the bedroom and removed her boots, unable to resist the contented sigh as she wiggled her toes and appreciated the freedom. Staring up at the ceiling, she ran her teeth over her bottom lip and thought about the man in the other room. She had considered his plight over his lost memories before, unsure how best to help them return. Regina had all but given up potion solutions to the problem, stating that some of the ingredients she needed were just too rare in this land. Dr. Hopper and Dr. Whale had both said the issue was not psychological or physical and therefore outside of their wheelhouse. She considered for a moment the idea of true love's kiss. She could try it, though she expected nothing from it. He had memory loss, not a sleeping curse. And she was not sure that what he felt for her two years ago could be categorized as love.

"I should just try it," she said to herself. "What have I got to lose?"

Then another thought flashed in her mind. If she did try it and it didn't work, what would that really mean? She loved him. She was sure about that part. She wouldn't have married a man she didn't love. From what she knew of true love, it was this magical thing that brought people together despite differences and geography. Her parents had that kind of love. There were books about it. Songs about it. Her kind of love was the kind that still argued about whose turn it was to take out the trash and which one of them got control of the remote control. That wasn't the same thing.

It was one thing to know deep down that you didn't have that magical quality to your love life. She was happy enough in the fact that she had accepted that she loved Killian and he loved her back – quirks and all. But what if the mystery of whether it was true love or not disappeared? What if she was faced with the concrete knowledge that what they had was not the same as other fairy tale characters? What if she really wasn't meant for a happy ending? Would she treat him differently? Would he still search for that once in a lifetime…?

She was going insane.

"I should go do it," she said. Pulling herself up to a sitting position, she gripped the post of the bed's footboard. She glanced toward the living room and noted that he had not moved yet. Great, she thought. I'm about to go kiss a man who isn't even awake. It's like an assault. But… "Now or never," she told herself though. "You aren't going to be able to think about anything else.

Padding to the living room, she looked at him for a moment longer. He looked quite peaceful and she wondered if he had that same expression as a kid. A slight upward turn of his mouth made her wonder if he was dreaming and if so about what. Between the couch and coffee table, she sank down on her knees, licking her lips nervously. Did true love's kiss work with chapped lips?

This was nuts, she thought. She was acting like she'd never kissed him before. They'd done more than kiss. She was carrying his child. She was nuts.

Standing back up, she walked to the kitchen and pulled a bottle of water out of the refrigerator. It was bad form, as he would say, to kiss someone unaware. That didn't bode well for true love's kiss, she told herself with the pinching thought that maybe she was just making excuses. She was staring at the two foam containers of pie when she heard the door rattle and her son come chugging in with his backpack on his shoulder and a duffle bag dragging the floor.

Holding a finger to her lips, she ran to envelope him in a hug and could only smile when he reminded her that she'd just seen him about an hour earlier. Swatting him playfully she told him to go put his stuff in his room. He did, turning to grin at her when he saw his step-father sacked out on the couch. She rolled her eyes when smiled wide and ran off toward his room.

She was trying to determine whether the items in the dishwasher were dirty or clean when she heard Killian's voice. Even before the explosion, he always woke up with a start, his hand immediately jumping to his side where he usually kept his sword handy and at the ready. She'd teased him about that, claiming she was glad he had stowed his weapons after they started dating.

"Hey there," she said, when he lifted his head enough to look at her over the back of the couch. "Good nap?"

He blinked several times, turning his head from side to side as he surveyed the surroundings. "I didn't mean to fall asleep," he said. "How long have you been here?"

"Little while," she said, shrugging. "Henry just got back a few minutes ago. He's in his room." Deciding the dishes were in fact dirty, she put more in and started the machine. Its hum and whir ground out loudly.

Nodding his head, he brushed his hand over both eyes and squinted at her. "You should have woken me, love," he said. "Did you and the boy eat?"

She nodded and moved easily from the kitchen to the living room. "I brought back some pie," she said. "I didn't think about Henry being here so you'll have to split it with him." She hesitated before him, seeing him still laid out there. Then with a small shrug, she picked up his feet and slid down to sit on that end of the couch, dropping his feet back in place.

"You neglected to buy yourself any pie?" he asked.

"No," she said with a smile. "I get a whole slice and you two can fight over the rest." He raised an eyebrow. "I'm eating for two!"

He chuckled at that. "I don't think I've fully grasped this," he said. "I'm going to be a father. That's not something I ever thought I'd say."

"You'll survive," she said. "And if you're freaking out a little, well that's okay. I'm freaking out a little too."

"So you're saying we'll do that together?" he asked.

"Yes," she agreed, reaching out to turn off the light closest to her since it was shining in her eyes. "I think some dashing pirate once said we made a good team."

"Emma…"

Henry bounded into the room, his button down shirt and crisp pants he had worn at Regina's replaced by a sweat shirt and jeans that were practically threadbare.

"I thought we got rid of those," she said as he dropped to the floor next to the coffee table. "You really can't be wearing those. They make it look like I'm dressing you in rags." His response was muffled, but she made out the words comfortable and over it.

Popping his head up, he smiled wickedly and yanked out a large box. "We haven't had family game night in a long time, mom," he said, trying his best to sound needy and neglected. "Monopoly?"

"You won't go to bed for hours if we play monopoly," she told him, frowning. "You've got school tomorrow."

"Look outside," he said, pointing to the window. "It's been snowing for the last hour and the weatherman said we can expect six inches tonight. I don't think there will be school."

"You have a man dedicated to weather?" Killian asked, straightening up and moving to a sitting position.

Emma transferred her gaze between the two, not sure which she should address first. She decided Henry would be the easiest. "Fine," she said. Set it up and I'll play, but if it gets too late, you're going to bed and we'll finish the game tomorrow." The boy was up and running again as soon as the words were out of her mouth.

"A weatherman is," she started to say to Killian, but he cut her off.

"I think that may be information I don't need, love," he said with a smile. "You can tell me what is Monopoly."

She smiled, asking him if he wanted to play. Learning that at least there were dice, he agreed heartily. Soon the three of them were around the table and Henry was trying to both strategize and teach his stepfather some of the finer points of the game. Emma had to break in a few times to calm Henry down and explain nuances to her husband about hotels and the strange currency of the game. But he picked it up quickly and only grumbled a few times, such as when he ended up in the brig. That sent Emma into hysterics about bologna and left both of the guys utterly bewildered that she should laugh so hard over something.

Henry was right, the snow did not let up and the thick blanket that covered the ground grew even thicker by the time Emma ended the game and sent the boy to bed. He only protested a little, but she had noticed that he was starting to nod off when he waited on either her or Killian to take a turn. She promised him that they would leave the game out for round two.

She was starting to empty the dishwasher when Killian came over and placed his hand on the small of her back, an intimate gesture that startled her. She raised up and looked toward his eyes.

"Emma," he said. "I spent some time thinking today about…everything." He shifted his weight, drawing his hand up from his back and rubbing the area just at his right temple.

She backed up a bit, taking in his nervousness. "I guess you would when I drop a bombshell like that." She hoped he would laugh or at least smile at her little joke. He didn't.

"I don't like to admit things like that earlier," he said. "Perhaps I should just ask what it is you presume of me. How should I address this?"

She looked back over at the table with the game pieces and the half-drunk soda from Henry. "Are you asking how to be a parent?" she asked. When he nodded, she grew serious with his answer. "I can't say that I really know how to answer that one. I wasn't a real parent until the Henry was already 10. I haven't done the baby part before. I haven't made those decisions about formula. I haven't chosen the brand of diapers. My experience kind of stopped when Henry was born."

"What are you expecting of me right now?" he asked. "I'm feeling like a sodding idiot for asking this, but I don't know what the proper protocol is here. I've wooed women before, bedded a fair amount, but none of those came with commitment or this." He waved his hand around at the room they were standing in currently. "I was quite sure this wasn't what I ever wanted, but you tell me that I did want it. Those portraits you have shown me that I was contented. I've always prided myself on doing things the right way when the situation warrants. I want to do this the right way."

"I meant what I said before," she told him. "I meant that we're a team in this. We'll figure this out together."

He nodded. "It's odd," he said, reaching over to lift one of the dishes and place it on the shelf. He repeated the motion without continuing the statement.

"What's odd?" she asked finally.

"In the past week I've learned that I'm married and soon to be a father," he said, nudging her out of the way to take over the task for her. "Those are rather extraordinary circumstances for a man like myself. So for all the information about my life here, the man I've become and the man you love, I don't have some of the memories I would like most." He lifted a colander from the rack and held it up to her. She pointed to the correct cabinet.

"What memories are those?" she asked.

"I can't remember kissing you or even…"

She coughed before he finished the sentence. "I suppose you can't," she said. "You haven't tried to kiss me. Why?"

"Love, you're a strong woman, a beautiful lass with more fire in you than most would realize," he said. "But I'm not likely to risk my life to steal a kiss from you. Should you not want it, I'd find myself back in that bloody hospital with a few broken bones."

She laughed. "But you must know that I eventually moved past pushing you away," she said. "I'd say that we became rather good at the whole kissing thing."

"I'm sure I did become fond of it," he said. "I bloody well don't remember it though." He blushed a bit as he said it and turned back to the cabinets where he placed the dishes, glasses and such.

"Are you asking me if you can kiss me?"

Placing the glass on the shelf, he dropped his head and turned around to her. "Aye."

At one of her foster homes she'd lived just down the street from a community pool. Each day the kids in the house would make the 10 minute walk to the pool where they would try to blend in with all the other kids who had parents, curfews, and the things that they were missing. One of the kids had dared Emma, who usually had no fears of anything physical, to jump from the high dive. At 12 years old, she climbed that long ladder and walked to the end of the platform at a painfully slow pace with the crowd of children below laughing and betting that she would be climbing back down any moment. To her it felt like forever before she reached the end of that platform, forever before she let herself control the bounce and hefted herself into the air and fell to the water below. The walk across the narrow kitchen felt just that long.

Her face was inches from his and she wondered if she should close the gap, take the pressure off of him. She didn't have to wait. He crushed his lips down hers. Though he restrained himself, he still kissed her with every bit of the anxiety and frustration he had been feeling. Before either completely lost themselves to it, he leaned his forehead down to hers. "Emma," he said softly. "I…" She cut him off, reigniting their kiss and parting her lips under his with invitation. He accepted.


	17. Chapter 17

Killian reached his hand out and groped blindly, the space next to him empty and cold. His head flew up off the pillow and his eyes scanned the room. She was nowhere in sight and he again was fuzzy on the details of protocol. In his mind, her departure did not speak well to his technique or abilities, but he also couldn't recall any complaints. The blankets pooled around his waist as he sat up in the bed and considered his options. His pants were on the floor and he thought he'd caught sight of his shirt a few feet away. How desperate did that make him sound?

Just as he was thinking to get up and go find her, she came back in the room carrying her shoes. The flush of her cheeks was less from embarrassment and more from the wind outside. "Hey," she said, tossing the shoes aside. "You're awake."

"You're dressed," he shot back, his face scrunching a bit.

"Sorry," she said. "I tried to be quiet about it. Henry's a disappointed boy. School was not cancelled. So I needed to get him on the bus."

"I was worried that perhaps you were not gratified?" he said with a hint of a question.

Pursing her lips together, she pulled the sleeves of the shapeless sweater that she had thrown on so that only the tips of her fingers peeked out. "Fishing for a compliment," she said, her eyes looking mischievous even in the low light that was managing to make its way through the slits of the blinds. "Sounds like Killian Jones to me. And I would think that the highlight of the night was you regaining your memories not the activities that followed."

He chuckled. "You would know, darling," he said. "Must say that I'm still learning about you."

"Are you?" she asked, kneeling on the bed with her hands on her knees. "I thought I was an open book. What could you possibly be learning about me?"

"For one, I learned last night that you turn the most beautiful shade of crimson when you try to hold back your vocal tendencies," he teased. "I know you were shy to let go with your boy in the apartment, but darling it isn't good to go against basic nature when…"

She clamped a hand across his mouth. "I swear. You are the same whether you remember or not." She laughed as he kissed the palm of her hand. "You didn't really think I was sneaking out, did you?"

"Love, I wouldn't play that game," he said, reclining back against the pillows and pulling her down next to him. "You are the one who was about to divorce me and have my child while sending me off to live on a pirate ship and die of scurvy or some such." He felt her tense and realized it was probably not the right time for such a joke.

"I didn't go through with it," she reminded him. She kicked her feet a bit wildly to find a way under the cover. Obligingly he reached down and pulled them up. "I'd also like to point out that those memories swimming in your head right now are courtesy of true love's kiss, which I gave you."

"Are you sure?" he asked mockingly. "I believe I kissed you first."

"That," she said proudly, "was just a peck. I kissed you. The phrase is true love's kiss, not true love's timid little peck." With her ear against his chest she could hear the chuckle bubble up and vibrate against her. "But whoever provided the extra oomph, I'm grateful."

"As am I," he said.

Later that morning, she was standing next to the bookshelf and carefully wrapping breakables in bubble wrap before placing them in boxes. Killian had tired of that activity and volunteered to walk to the school to pick up Henry after the school's administrator finally came to his senses and sent the children home because another front was predicted to come in later that afternoon. She'd even hinted at some of Granny's potato soup sounding really good.

Like a good husband, he came in about an hour later with her son bundled up like a marshmallow and a large container of the rich and thick item. Her eyes lit up at the sight, which he later complained was more about the soup than him.

Henry grumbled about stupid principals not giving kids a day off when it was obvious to anyone with a window and a television that it was a blizzard outside. And Emma complained that he was sulking when he was getting four extra hours off from school that were not scheduled. Killian just chuckled and offered his stepson another round with their ongoing Monopoly game as Emma fried up bacon and added cheese to the soup. The three played until the light became so dim that Emma took a break to turn on a few lamps and take a peek at the weather outside.

It was a winter wonderland and she could no longer see any of the grass or pavement under the thick fluffy blankets. It had quit for the time being, but the grey clouds overhead still threatened and the wind was howling loudly. A quick call to her parents found them warm and safe, David telling her that he would respond to any calls on that end of town if she took her end.

The evening passed much the same way, as Henry refused to do extra reading for school under the statement that it would be a waste if school was cancelled. He and Killian looked at a few items for the cottage online, but even that was short lived with the power flickering as the wind grew stronger. During one such outage that lasted only a few minutes Killian wondered aloud if another ice wall had developed, but she and Henry assured him that such occurrences were commonplace with winter storms.

Emma would wander to the windows at times and gaze out with a concerned look that Killian only asked her about once. She had brushed him off and told him they'd talk later. He understood that she did not always say what was on her mind when Henry was able to hear the conversation. So when she sent him off to brush his teeth before bed, Killian followed her to the window and peered out on the snowy landscape. "Tracks," she said, pointing to them under the hazy light of a security light. "That's the second set I've seen. The first set was covered over about an hour ago."

"Perhaps a neighbor or someone out walking a dog?" he suggested.

"I don't think so," she said. "There is just one set and no dog tracks at all. Look where they go and turn around."

He leaned forward, his face feeling the cold rush of air against the window pane. Pulling back before he fogged up the glass, he looked at her. "Our room?"

"Yes," she said. "Not very comforting, is it?"

Glancing over his shoulder, to the closed bathroom door, he frowned. "I'll go out to check on things, love," he said, kissing her temple as he backed away. He nodded as she reminded him to be careful.

She did her best to distract Henry and get him to bed before Killian came back or her son even realized he was missing. And despite her own penchant for investigations and law enforcement, she did not freak out over the fact that she was currently sitting idle while Killian potentially faced a foe. She wouldn't admit that she had already put her shoes back and was ready to jump at the first sound of trouble.

Killian returned a few minutes later with a layer of snow on his shoes that she frowned at immediately, knowing that there would be puddles to mop up soon. He glanced around the room and she told him that Henry was in bed.

There were at least two sets of foot prints in the alcove of trees near the parking area, he told her. Another set joined them and then proceeded straight to their window and back again. He was not sure on one set, but he told her that he knew the one that came closest to them was a man and one of the other's a woman.

"So what should we do?" she asked.

"Be careful," he said. "Not much we can do at this point, love. I'll be vigilant tonight and we'll see what tomorrow brings."

She tried to convince him that they did not need to take turns sleeping, as she had more than enough experience on both sides of the law to know how to secure their home. Still she knew he'd stay awake long after she dozed off because he was bound and determined that he would protect her against anyone. It was in his nature. Still he eventually let his eyes fall shut too.

A cracking sound outside the window startled him and his eyes immediately popped open. At first he didn't even realize why he had awakened, only concentrating on the golden haired beauty in bed with him. He lifted his head from the soft pillow and glanced over her toward the digital alarm clock, seeing that they still had a few hours before light would again intrude. Lowering himself back down on the bed, he couldn't resist the urge to watch her sleep for a moment longer, sensing it as a rare opportunity to understand that unguarded part of her.

"_Why do you do that?" she asked one morning, her voice husky from the hours of drowsing lazily in his arms. "I can't be that interesting."_

"_But you are, love," he told her. "I find you endlessly intriguing and more interesting than any book on our shelves."_

"_You should be sleeping," she said, not hiding the faint smile at his compliment. "Who knows when we'll have to face the next crisis? We'll need our rest."_

_Kissing the tip of her nose, his fingers ran along her hairline, tracing her features with delicate softness. "You seem so sure there will be another crisis," he said. "Perhaps we will remain lucky for a while."_

_She stretched and arched backward, gaining a better look at his serene face. "There always is," she told him. "You've said it yourself. But if you're willing to trust it. I am too." He groaned his protest when she pulled out of his reach, dragging her hand blindly along the bedside table. She held up her phone triumphantly and slid her finger across it. "Off," she said with a proud smile. "I turned it off. No interruptions. Unless the crisis freaking walks in this bedroom, we are not going to know about it. It won't interrupt us."_

_He raised a sardonic eyebrow at her. "You can live like that, love?" he asked. "You can focus all your attention on the here and now?"_

"_I can focus on you," she said. "You can keep me distracted."_

He was trying to fight the urge to lower his lips to hers and risk waking her when he heard the sound again. This time it was closer to him, almost directly outside of the bedroom window. It sounded as though someone was the window itself. Disentangling himself from Emma's warm body, Killian rushed to the windows on the far side of the room. The full moon afforded him a partial view, but still he could only make out a shadow running away from the clearing and into the thick foliage of the woods. He almost ran after whoever it was himself, but looking down he knew he would never catch them. His bare feet would slow him down in the search.

The clicking and whirring of the radiator sounded in the room, as he paced back and forth next to the bed. He tried to avoid the creaky spots on the floor, but he wasn't very successful at it. Each time a board or area of the floor would sag or groan he would look guiltily at her sleeping form. There was something innocent and naïve about the way she rested, as if she would be trusting and loving toward anyone who happened across her. The secrets that she kept close to her were lost in the silent rest she had immersed herself in.

When her phone chirped to life a few moments later he was neither surprised nor disappointed. She groggily reached for it, a reflex action that he knew he'd never break her from no matter how hard he tried. She gave short and monosyllabic answers to whomever was on the other end, using the heel of her other hand to rub her eyes. "Hey," she said to him, seeing his form glancing toward the window again. "You're awake."

"Aye," he answered. Looking down at his bare feet, he heard her moan as she stretched. "Duty calls?"

She frowned at the clock beside the bed. "I'm afraid so," she admitted. "That was my father. He needs me to come in to the station." She rolled and scooted to the bed's edge, lowering her legs and feet to the floor. "You need to come too," she added apologetically."

"Me?"

She nodded. "Our good friend, Rumpelstiltskin, has been spotted here in Storybrooke, along with three partners in crime," she said. "My father thinks we need to start planning our attack now."

"I always thought your father was more of a pacifist," he told her as she passed by him to look at her reflection in the mirror. "He never struck me as the type to raid the enemy camp."

She combed through her hair with her fingers, pulling it back and tying it off with a simple band. "He's not the type to sit back and let anyone attack his family," she said as she crossed the room and headed toward her side of the closet. She paused as she looked at the contents. "You know that he considers you family now. He's been pushing me to be more open with you. You really have an advocate there." She emerged a few minutes later fully dressed and looking as ready to go. "I guess," she said with a bit of hesitancy. "I guess I need to talk to Henry."

She left him alone with his thoughts for a few minutes and returned with her son looking tired but in better spirits than one would think. She handed each of them a coat and ushered them outside where the snow was starting to fall again. She locked the apartment up tight and though she did not mention the tracks or the noise that Killian had heard, she had not said much about it, only frowning with the added stress and insisting that they take her car rather than walk. He slid in beside her, again noting the ease at which she moved and switched gears from repentant wife to sheriff and savior. The lights at the station were blazing as they walked inside, finding Emma's parents and Belle already there.

His wife hugged them each in turn, shying away from their questioning look as she clasped his hand to pull him forward to hear the full story of the Dark One's return. To her credit, she remained with him, glancing at him uncertainly when anyone spoke of having a clear head to deal with the threat. He could see the similarities in her demeanor and that of her father, both of them shared similar coloring and features. It was more than that though. She stood at the ready just like him, a determined and strong jaw clenched in preparation. Her eyes flashed in a similar way and the upturn of her nose was a mirror image of his.

"Let's just get this out of the way," David said, looking to his daughter and Killian. "Hook, you've got two years of memories that are lost right now. Your last memories are of a man who was hell bent on killing the Dark One or at least destroying his life."

"He remembers," Emma said, again shooting him a reassuring look. "We've been dealing with that and he remembers."

Mary Margaret opened her mouth, but realized that he daughter was not about to start talking about things like feelings when they were in the middle of a sheriff's station with a possible crisis looming. Such talk would have to wait.

"Aye," Killian responded. "I have never been shy about my desire for revenge against the bloody Crocodile, but I won't put anyone's life, especially Emma and Henry, in danger to achieve it. But mark my words, if the opportunity presents itself, I cannot promise that I won't act upon it." His eyes were downcast and his cheeks flushed as the other man waited on him to finish.

"Nobody expects that," David told him. "You're well within your rights to want to get back at the man. I don't think any of us would blame you for it." He glanced between his wife and Belle. "I just want to ensure that if you do anything, you do so with all of our safety in mind. I can't have you going rogue just to satisfy some feud that has been boiling for centuries."

"I understand," Killian said solemnly. "I accept that."

"Because if you put my daughter in danger because you're more determined to slit his throat than keep her safe, I'll have to…"

"Dad," Emma said firmly. "He said he understood." She was standing just inches in front of Killian, something few would notice, but she was clearly moving into her protective mode. That was what was evident. She offered her father that patented stare of a woman ready to charge.

David looked as though he wanted to say more, but he closed his mouth, returning to his seat on the edge of the desk. Mary Margaret looked at him sympathetically. "David thinks that our best bet is to use the dagger," she said, casting her glance toward Belle. "If you call him and control him, we will have an upper hand."

Belle's expression was anything but comfortable. Her hands splayed on the vacant desk where she sat, as her heels clicking erratically on the metal foundation. "Is there any other way?" she asked. "I don't think it is wise for me to see him." She laughed nervously. "I'm not ready for this. He's supposed to be gone."

"If he's returned," Killian said. "It won't be a social call. He's going to come after those he feels have wronged him. I'd say that his wife and I would be high on that list."

Emma reached out her free hand to squeeze Belle's shoulder sympathetically. "Are we sure he's even a danger?" she asked. "I mean does he currently even have magic?" 

"We don't know," Mary Margaret said at the same time that David said, "We don't think so."

"That's reassuring," Emma muttered. "We have no idea what we're going up against. I feel prepared."

"He has three…associates," David said. "I'm afraid our witnesses didn't get a good look at them. One seemed to think he recognized Maleficent."

"Wait!" Emma said. "She was the one under the library?" She gripped Killian's hand tighter, hoping to find strength there. He managed an encouraging smile to her.

"We've left Regina a message," Mary Margaret said. "She'd know best on that." The brunette stood and moved toward the stroller next to the cells. She leaned down and adjusted the blanket covering her son.

Belle reached behind her and took the handwritten notes that David had made from his witness interviews. "We may not need her confirmation," Belle said, sighing in resignation. Her hand shook the paper and her mouth turned down. "I think I may know these women."

_**A/N: I hate to leave it at this point, but I should be able to update one more time before I have to get ready for the party my husband and I are hosting. **_

_**I want to take a moment to thank some of the most recent reviewers and some of the most loyal. All of your comments, compliments, and suggestions have been wonderful treats. I'm currently in the midst of a rather tough MFA program in writing. Some of our critiquing sessions can last for more than an hour where I just get to listen to what others think of my writing. I don't get to defend myself or what I wrote – talk about brutal. **_

_**It can be difficult to share something that I write when I'm not always feeling the most confident. Needless to say it is wonderful to get positive feedback for something I love to do. **_


	18. Chapter 18

_**A/N: I'm posting this during a break from my party preparations. I won't be able to post again today because five couples joining us, kids to get off to the grandparents, lots of food to cook, a husband to convince to clean the house, and laundry to do before everyone arrives is going to be too much of a distraction from writing today. We'll see about tomorrow – I am usually so exhausted after these events that I sleep for 24 hours straight.**_

_**I hope you enjoy this chapter. I've included two flashbacks and the whole thing is a quiet moment (except a screaming baby) for Captain Swan. **_

_**Happy New Year to everyone! May your troubles be left behind in the past and the happiness of the future meet you in 2015!**_

Emma's face was bathed in light as the lamp from her desk seemed to provide a special glow about her features. She had leaned forward, her fingers skimming over the notes he father made and adding in Belle's comments for good measure. Killian was across from her, unsure they expected of him. He wasn't law enforcement in any version of his centuries, but in Storybrooke he had found himself deeply ensconced with their plans. He had volunteered to leave earlier, scout out the enemy lair, but she had shaken her head and said that she would feel best if he stayed there with her.

She said it was to keep her company, protect her from any surprise attacks, but he wasn't totally convinced of that reasoning. When her brother cried out a few minutes after her parents followed Belle to retrieve the dagger, he figured that maybe she just wanted him there as a babysitter.

"Your parents seem to have this lad well trained," he muttered, holding the bottle up so that she could see how much he had drank from it. "He saw it headed for him and he was at the ready."

She laughed at that, but clamped a hand over her mouth remembering that her son was asleep on the couch in the midst of all this. "That's just a natural reflex for a baby," she said. "Thank you for feeding him, though. I pictured that playing out much differently and you somehow freaking out." She looked around the now dimly lit office. "I feel like we should be doing something here."

"We're making ourselves useful," he said, ignoring the nagging feeling that they were not. "Your brother is fed. You have made a page of notes based on your father's findings and Belle's musings. I think that is something."

She slid the cover of the notepad shut, folding her hands on top of it. "We could call Granny or someone, see if they could babysit," she said. "That way we could go out there and…" She was not sure how to finish that sentence.

"I'd rather have you safely here, but I know you and you won't last for that very long," he said. "You're never very far from a dangerous situation. I've never seen you run from one, alas it is usually straight toward the fire."

"And yet I'm currently on desk and babysitting duty," she said, furrowing her brow. "Do you think they know?" When he did not respond immediately. "About…" She moved her hands over her midsection. "We haven't really made any announcements yet, but I get the feeling that they…"

"Is that your way of asking if you are more round?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "According to those plays or productions you've made me watch on the television, that question is a trap meant to ensnare me."

She laughed. "That's not what I meant. I'm not that far along and I can still fit in my clothes, thank you. No, I just meant their attitudes. They seem…different."

"Love, their being protective of you isn't all that different," he said. "They are your parents. They have as much reluctance at seeing you risk yourself to run headlong into danger as I do."

"You don't try to stop me," she pointed out.

"I know you. You wouldn't listen and I'd rather run at your side toward that danger."

She smiled warmly. "Have I mentioned how good it is that you remember?" she asked. "Because it seriously is the best news. Not only did I hurt for you, it is annoying trying to figure out what you know or don't know when you…"

"I'm glad too," he said. "But you could show your gratitude."

"I can't really kiss you properly with my baby brother in your arms," she said, pointing to his occupied arms.

"I like the way your mind works, darling, but no, I wasn't soliciting a kiss from you," he said with a chuckle. Looking down he watched the baby's eyes fighting to stay open. It was a losing battle, but he was valiantly fighting against it. "I was thinking perhaps you might relieve me of this duty."

Emma smiled. "Enough practice?" she asked, sliding her arms under the blanket to retrieve her brother. "You could have put him back in his stroller." She gently does what she just suggested, placing a light hand to smooth down the baby's hair.

Turning to face him, she sighs. "This is frustrating," she said. "I'm going nuts here."

"You've already broken one spell this week," he reminded her. "Perhaps you should pace yourself."

"So now we agree that it was me and not you," she teased.

_The first sign that something had changed was way his hand moved from the side of her face as they were kissing to her upper arm. Its grip was more forceful than usual and his body trembled from the exertion. She felt the heat coursing through her, a sure sign of her magic at work, but it was different now. Instead of a scalding and sudden sharpness, it was a warmth that radiated and seemed to linger around them both. She was almost afraid to pull away._

_The second thing she noticed was the familiarity to the kiss. It was not a hollow gesture or at all tentative. There was an awareness that it was something more. _

_He broke the connection first, his head pulling away from hers with eyes still closed and lips still slightly parted. She tried to breathe normally, tried to keep her expectations to a minimum. If it hadn't worked, if it was a failure, she would deal with it. They would deal with it. She would find another way._

_She watched him and not the green numbers on her stove so she did not know how long had passed, but with a start he opened his eyes and trained them straight on hers. She didn't have to ask him, prod him to tell her what he remembered. She could see it. She could remember her own awakening from the cloud of lost memories and moments. _

"_I…" he said, fumbling a bit. "I wasn't thinking that would work." Had the counter not been behind him he might have stumbled back into it. "You're…"_

"_Sit down," she said, a bit too commanding but in her head she was just trying to gain a little control on the situation. "You need to sit."_

_He did not move toward the chair. "That should be illegal," he muttered, finally releasing her arm and spreading his ringed fingers out over the side of his face. "It's bloody hell to…"_

"_I know," she said. "I was going to ask if you're alright, but…" _

"_I'm fine, love," he said, shaking his head in an effort to loosen a bit of the storm of memories. "Better than fine."_

_She smiled cautiously, remembering the way her own memories had flooded back without rhyme or reason. Good, bad, clear, fuzzy, sad, happy and everything in between had rushed toward her with images, scents, sounds, and feelings. "Just let it…"_

_He ripped his hand away from his face and back to her, wrenching her toward him and covering her lips with his again. She felt her legs give way, falling into his chest, her arms bending up around his neck and her hands at the back of his head. He caught her bottom lips between his teeth and she pulled back. "Killian," she said, unsure what the next word should be, but she settled. "Slow."_

_He laughed, which is not usually the response one wants after kissing their true love. "Making up for lost time," he said. "Bloody hell I don't want to ever forget this." _

_She smiled up at him. "You remember everything then?"_

_He bobbed his head yes. "I didn't have any memories of events or places or people from that time," he said. "But there was something. I can't rightly explain it, but I felt connected to certain places or people. I felt that deep down I knew that I belong someplace or that I felt comfortable with someone. It may have been an illusion, but it was there. Now I know it was real. I know this is real."_

"_I was worried that we were going to have to find a potion like you gave me," she said. "I didn't know if we'd ever find it or…You're back." _

"I still marvel that you drank that willingly," he said. "I hardly have the most trustworthy face and you are nothing, if not suspicious."

She laughed at his accurate assessment of her. "I drank it willingly, after having you arrested and locked up for kissing me in the first place," she laughed. "Like you said, there is something that remains even after the memories are gone. I knew I could trust you. God knows why. You were a strange man, wearing pirate clothes, coming to my door one morning without any warning, and telling me strange things about a family I didn't even know I had."

"When my kissing you failed to return your memory, I thought I had surely failed," he said. "I don't know how it worked this time but not then."

"I don't know how it works, Killian," she said honestly. "My mother says it is based in hope. She says that you have to have hope that what you are doing is the right thing and faith that it is enough to sustain. My father is more of a man of courage and fighting. He thinks you must prove yourself worthy of whatever it is that you want. Henry thinks it is enough to believe."

"And you," he asked. "What do you believe?"

"I'm not sure I have a life's philosophy on the subject yet," she admitted. "I think maybe they are all right, though. Maybe it takes hope, faith, courage, and belief to make it work. Maybe that's why sometimes it fails – you're missing an ingredient."

He smiles. "Your brother seems to disagree," he said as the boy let out a loud screech right at Emma's ear.

She switched her position to lean over the stroller, her arm sweeping around protectively and whispering something to him that Killian could not hear. As the baby quieted, she looked back up. "My parents are better at all those things than I am," she admitted. "He's a good example of that. We had a short engagement because I was so afraid that something horrible was going to happen to ruin things that I wanted to get married as soon as we could make it happen. I'm always waiting on that other shoe to drop. My parents don't carry that worry with them. They just live their lives and deal with what happens." Frowning she curved a single finger down her brother's cheek. "They are braver than I am. I…"

"The Emma I know is brave," he corrected her. "She climbed a bloody beanstalk to face a giant with a pirate she did not know or trust yet. That's not the act of a coward."

"Trusting you has not been the problem," she said, lowering her eyes to watch her brother's sleeping face. "It's trusting that I can have a normal life with all this going on around us. It's trusting that we can go home after fighting a witch, a warlock, a monster, or some other villain and enjoy a movie, dinner, or just each other. My parents have that kind of faith and hope that they will get to see my little brother grow up despite the fact that they are out there right now preparing to fight four villains at the same time. I've never had that."

"_Are we really sure about this?" she asked him, looking skyward as the thin clouds obscured her view of the stars for brief moments. "Marriage, kids, the whole thing? We could just…"_

"_We could," he said, not waiting for her to finish. "I could continue calling on you, watching your father work himself up into fits over our dalliances, sneak in secret moments when nobody is looking, fend off the rumors about your virtue when you sneak down the stairs at Granny's like you haven't been there all night with me…"_

"_Point taken," she echoed his sentiments, arching around to his face. "I guess it is too late to worry about that now."_

"_Aye," he said, kissing the tip of her nose. "You've been my wife for six hours now."_

"_That long," she said, feigning amazement. "That's the longest I've ever been married to anyone."_

"_Let's go for a record," he teases, his one hand tugging at the blanket she had wrapped herself in before walking out on the balcony of their honeymoon escape. "But you are correct, we should celebrate the longevity of this union." _

_She let him turn her around to face him, her arms opening to envelope him in the warmth of the blanket. "Any excuse, right?" _

"_Don't you know?" he said, his mouth finding the sensitive skin on her neck. "I don't need an excuse to demonstrate to my wife how much I love and adore her?" She practically folded against his attention. _

"_It's not a contest," she managed to say as he led her back toward the bed. "Just because we decided we want to start a family doesn't mean we have to start this second. There's not a prize for being in a rush." She giggled as he pushed her backwards, her body landing with a soft plop. _

_He smiled wickedly at her. "Practice, darling," he said mischievously. "We're just practicing."_

"Your mother believes that good wins," he said. "Like her daughter, she hates to be proven wrong."

Crossing over to him, she stood and smiled at him cautiously. "I believe that," she said. "I hope that we will always find a way to defeat whatever we are up against, whether it is from your realm or mine. I have faith that you will fight your way back to me and me to you because if there is one thing we have too much of it is courage to face an enemy. And I believe that we are better together than apart because we make a good team with all the craziness of storybook characters, hundreds of years of age difference, broken hearts, different backgrounds, differences of opinion, stupid decisions, and everything else that drives us apart." She raised her eyes to meet his gaze, looking at him and his tight features that were those of a man still desperate to go after his enemy.

"That's quite a philosophy for a woman who said she had none," he said.


	19. Chapter 19

An hour had passed before Emma's stomach growling made her quit flipping through Henry's book to laugh aloud at the absurdity. She saw him watching her as he flipped through the file she had discarded earlier, his own memories foggy from his past meetings with one of the three accomplices. It wasn't the spell but time and age that had made that thought hazy.

Pushing aside the storybook, her eyes lowered back to her efforts to program the GPS that had come back with her from New York and sat gathering dust in a corner of the office. While Storybrooke did not exist on any of the maps or satellite images, Henry had worked with her a few weeks ago to hack into the device and create a way to map out the area a little more accurately. Entering coordinates for some of the area's landmarks was a good way to let her hands remain busy.

With only hours since his memories return, he was still sorting through them. His first memory that flooded back in his mind back in the kitchen hadn't been the kiss outside of Granny's as the town celebrated the birth and naming of her brother. It wasn't the night he spent holding her after she emerged from the ice cave half frozen and throwing herself into his arms. It wasn't the arguments, the flirting, the rolled eyes or the derisive smiles that seem to litter their relationship with more spice than a typical romance. It wasn't even the brief moment that he held her with two hands on their first date. It was her smile as he danced with her in a ballroom in a far off land that permeated through the fog of his confusion. Her eyes dropping shyly and her lips curling up over her teeth were the sweetest things he'd ever seen. She'd looked beautiful to him that night, and certainly he'd seen her look equally or more beautiful since then.

He was about to ask her if she might like to enjoy such a night again, an excuse to dance without the pretense this time. However, the trademark of their relationship would not allow planning ahead to occur so spontaneously. The walkie-talkie that she had been carrying at her hip crackled and David's voice bellowed across it.

When she ended the exchange, the softness had been replaced by that determination that he recognizes in her every time. She smiles apologetically. "This happens a lot," she muttered, grabbing her phone to call Granny to pinch hit as a babysitter.

"I remember," he said. Such a simple two word sentence made her smile with its new significance.

She was pulling on her coat and looking over at Henry with a sad expression on her face.

"I don't know that I can do all this…" she said.

He was behind her, his hand rubbing up and down on her arm. She rarely had these moment of doubt, but he had to come to recognize them and knew that sometimes she merely needed to talk herself into it. Other times she need his words, hugs, and touches.

"I'm an idiot," she said, whirling around to face him. "You married an idiot."

"I resent that," he said. "I think I have fine taste in women." He offered her a smile, his eyes crinkling in merriment, but she was not responding to him.

A smile cracked her face. "We never take the easy way," she said. "Everything is always a fight or a challenge.

_The morning after Rumpelstiltskin had stepped over the town line, the light was just breaking through the trees when Emma struggled out of Killian's embrace and toward the dresser in her room. Last night she'd sworn she wasn't letting him out of her sight, but the call of her normalcy was equally as enticing as he let out light breaths at her ear. By the time he woke up she was dressed for her daily exercise, tying up the laces on her sturdy but worn sneakers. _

"_You could come with me?" she teased, leaning over him. "Might be fun."_

"_I think I'll let that be your solitary activity," he told her. "Breakfast maybe?"_

_She sighs. "I'll need to do an extra mile just for those waffles," she said, dropping a kiss on his wrinkled forehead. "Fine. Breakfast in 90 minutes."_

_He'd already ordered for her as she arrived, his eyes teasing when Ruby referred to her ponytail as having an extra bounce that morning. She'd teased him back about sneaking out of her parents' loft in an attempt to hide from them. They shared their breakfasts easily, stealing bites, glances, and a few kisses under the prying eyes of the citizens of Storybrooke. He expected her to pull back and tell him to be patient. She didn't. _

_After the coffee had long turned cold and the syrup hardened on the plates, she had remembered her duties and told him that she had to go to the station. He'd only mockingly protested as she gathered her belongings and walked to the yellow car just a block away. _

_She had been sitting behind the wheel, contemplating if her father would mind that much if she took a day off when he'd turned back to face her, his face serious. When he mouthed the words to her, her heart dropped and jumped at the same moment. She felt her mouth go dry and her hands gripped the steering wheel as though it might offer some sort of comfort at a time like that. It wasn't joy or even relief when she turned the words she read off his lips. She was angry._

_Jumping out of the car, she approached with a stalking gait and thumped her hands against his chest. "What the hell do you mean by saying that here and now?" she practically screamed. Two of the quietest dwarves had been walking by and quickly crossed to the other sidewalk to avoid her outburst. _

"_Did I offend you?" he asked, bewildered at her anger and sudden mood swing._

"_That was supposed to be a private and romantic moment," she said, tears threatening to fall. "I wanted it to be perfect and you're saying it to me as I go to leave to investigate a vandalism call. That's not right!"_

"_Swan," he said wearily. "It wasn't meant to be romantic." _

"_Not romantic!" she continued. "You finally tell me that you love me, but I can't even hear the words. I had to read your lips. Well guess what! I love you too. We're standing next to a dumpster and I need a shower from my run. See - I can do not-romantic too."_

_It was the first time he'd really laughed in front of her. She'd heard tense chuckles and teasing titters that were appreciative of his amusement. But this was an all out laugh. She fumed as he bent forward and laughed at her anger, her passion, and her ability to jump to conclusions. Backing from him, she grunted inelegantly. "I'm glad you're amused."_

"_Love," he managed between chortles. "I didn't mean to upset you. I didn't even say I love you."_

_She was seconds from a snappy retort about intentions meaning nothing when you were laughing at your girlfriend in the middle of a public place. Then his confession hit her. "You didn't?" she asked. "But it looked like…"_

"_I told you to tie your shoe," he said, pointing at the loose laces of one of her sneakers. His smile was crooked. "I was worried that you'd fall. But if it will rectify the situation, I'll say the words you seem to want to hear. I love you too."_

"Life always has battles and challenges, love," he told her. "You happen to be very good at facing them."

"But it's going to be different this time. It's not going to be easy."

He would have answered that it never was, but Granny entered the room without a knock or a cleared throat. If he complained, she would have told him that it was a public place. She busily gathered the baby bag, empty bottle, a teething ring, and the half full package of diapers that David kept under his desk just in case.

Granny stomped her foot on the stroller's break and released it, gripping the handle tightly in her plump hands. "You've got nothing to worry about," she reassured Emma. "Nobody is going to get past me and get to this sweet thing or your son."

Henry was still wiping away the invisible remnants of sleep from his eyes, his face contorting in that odd way. "I'm sweet too," he muttered, standing up to follow the older woman. "And I don't need a babysitter." This was the second time he had been rousted from bed and he was barely holding it together. A mixture of confusion, fear, and even anger was on his face.

Giving him a side hug, Emma told him that he was more than old enough but she wanted him to help keep an eye on his uncle just in case. He didn't buy it, but he nodded dutifully and only rolled his eyes once when Killian pointed out that he himself had been left on babysitting duty more than a few times.

"Breakfast's on the desk there," Granny emphasized the word breakfast as she maneuvered the stroller toward the door. "I didn't even charge you for the cheese and sour cream. But your tab is adding up. Best come by and pay it once this is over."

Emma laughed, reaching down into her desk drawer. "I've got cash here," she told the woman. "What do I owe you?"

Granny waved her hand. "I'll collect later," she told them. "From you, Emma. I don't trust him to pay me back." She glowered at Killian and then laughed.

Killian chuckled. "I will be by later to settle my debts, milady," he said, offering a small bow.

"Don't even try it," she told him. "You've got more than your hand can handle with that wife of yours and a baby on the way." Both Emma and Killian stopped short, staring after her which seemed to please Granny immensely. "Don't look shocked. I'm not stupid or senile. I notice things. For instance your breakfast order there, Emma, contains a bowl of chili and orange juice. That's either a sign of an iron stomach or a baby on the way. Either way people will congratulate you."

Emma flushed. "I'll enjoy it," she managed to say. "Thank you."

Even as the door was still swinging shut and Killian was reaching back to secure it, Emma had disappeared into the locked closet to search out items to protect them. When he asked her if she was stalling, she complained that she should have done this earlier. Coming back out into the main area, she set the odd assortment of items out on the table. Between her service revolver, a second pistol and a Taser, she had this century covered. But she also carried with her a sword, as well as her mother's spare bow and arrows.

"Wow," Killian said, watching her hide the smaller pistol in her boot. "I've prepared for battle before, but love, that is a full out arsenal for such a small army. You only need a canon at this point."

The look she shot him was one that shut him up immediately. She handed him the sword. "I don't think we have time to go back to the apartment," she said. "Will this do?"

"Aye," he said, gripping it and looking down the long taper. "You seem convinced we shall need these."

"I don't think this is going to be an argument or a negotiation." She frowned as she picked up the final item. "It's not going to be pretty."

They were about half a mile from the station when the walkie-talkie crackled to life again and the voice of a very frustrated David Nolan broke through. "Emma," he said. "Might as well pack it in. We lost them."

"What?" Emma asked, holding the device in one hand and the steering wheel in the other.

"We thought we found them," he said, sounding more than a little defeated. "But we were wrong. No sign anyone's been out in this area in at least a month or two. It's getting colder. I don't think we should be out here without…We're going back to the loft to regroup."

"The loft, right," Emma said, glancing at a very tense Killian beside her. "We'll meet you there. Should I pick up…"

"We'll get Neal from Granny and Henry too." David was talking to someone else, the whispered voice unintelligible to her. "See you in a few."

She put the device between her knees and reached her arm blindly into the back seat, feeling around until her hand touched what she was looking for after a few seconds. Pulling it forward, she balanced it on the steering wheel and tried to swipe her finger across it.

"Love, is there something you want me to do?" he asked. "I could try, you know."

"I'm fine," she said tersely, then she made her tone gentler. "Sorry. It is just easier if I do it right now and not try to explain it."

He looked a little bit disappointed, but he was aware that she had a point. "You're not thinking to go out there anyway, are you?" He watched her out of the corner of his eye. "The prince makes a good point about the temperature."

"Mmmmmhmmmmm," she muttered, shifting the balance of the GPS to reach over and turn the heat on a little higher. "We're going to the loft," she said. "I'm just thinking." With a frustrated grunt, she whipped the car to the side of the road and punched at the small device in her hand. "Maybe…"

_**A/N: Happy New Year!**_

_**I am trying to decide what to do with this story. I could end it in the next couple of chapters. However, something that a friend said at a party last night made me have an idea on how to extend it a bit longer. (Not sure if it was her idea or the margaritas.) What would you prefer?**_


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N: I've had a couple of questions in the reviews and even one by private message. Yes, Killian's memories are back.**

David warily stirred the spoon in his coffee cup as though he was not really listening to any of the conversations going on around him. Granny and Ruby had stopped by earlier, even though he'd just seen them when they picked Henry and Neal up from the older woman. Both offered their help in tracking down the villains, deciding that as a team they were stronger than apart. Leroy and the other dwarfs had visited for a bit, also offering help. However, David was sure that was more about getting information for gossip. Aurora and Ashley both volunteered to babysit when needed and Aurora tried to help fill in a few of the blanks on Maleficent.

Even Regina finally answered her phone and came by the loft for a debriefing. Mary Margaret spent most of her time with the woman, explaining what they knew and questioning Regina's history with the women. David kept one ear trained on what was normally a whispered conversation. But occasionally there were exclamations from Mary Margaret and a few huffs and stamped feet from the former mayor.

David was so busy listening to his wife's conversation and trying to figure out why his daughter was staying so quiet that he was startled when his son-in-law came over and refreshed his coffee.

"Mate," Killian addressed him, smirking a bit. "You've stirred that cup to the point that it is ice cold. Thought you could do with something a little warmer."

David looked down into the cup and frowned. "Thanks," he said. "I appreciate it."

"No worries," Killian said, situating himself in one of the chairs around the kitchen table. He drummed his fingers on the surface until David's annoyed expression told him to stop. "So what exactly are we dealing with here?"

"I wish I knew," David said.

"That's comforting," Killian responded. "The bloody Dark One is foe enough, but with his accomplices, I'm a bit pessimistic about the outcome. It would be advantageous to know if the man has magic or not."

David sipped the hot liquid and pulled the mug away quickly as it burned his lips. Putting his fist to his mouth as that might help, he eyed the man in front of him carefully. "I'm sorry about earlier," he said. "Don't let it go to your head, but I thought I should say it."

Confusion stained Killian's face as he digested the meaning of the words. "I'd likely have said the same thing," Killian said. "I've got the longest span of hostility with the Crocodile and anyone who ignores that face is naive. Yet I can assure you that I'm not about to put your daughter or anyone in your family in harm's way so that I might have one moment of glory over that man."

"You wouldn't have always said that," David lamented. "The Hook I first met would have taken us all out if it meant getting back at Rumpelstiltskin." He swirled his cup a little and contemplated drinking again, but decided to hold off.

"Aye," Killian said. "Your family grew on me though, especially Emma." He smiled roguishly at his father-in-law. "I'd rather not risk anything with her."

David nodded. "So…" He smiled. "Your memories appear to be back in order. That's a relief to all of us."

"As well as myself," Killian admitted. "I'm sure I don't have to tell you that missing spans of time are not pleasurable. I spent more time wondering what I had forgotten than actually understanding the current situation."

"Hook," he said, slowly balling a napkin up in his hand. "I do know what it is like to have that divide in time. It makes you wonder who you are and how you got to the person you are now. If you…well, if you need to talk to someone about it…"

"You'll give me the cricket's address?" Killian answered wryly. "Mate, I'm fine. I promise."

"Good to hear it," David chuckled. "But I meant me. You're family. I will be there for you, if you need it."

Her parents loft was loud and warm as usual and the door swung open at regular intervals with visitors and those wanting a favor, advice, or something else. If Emma squinted, she could almost see her parents sitting in thrones and entertaining the requests of their subjects back in the Enchanted Forest. But that thought did not sit in her mind for long when she looked over at Belle's pale face and untouched food.

She hated the chair she sat in that day. It wasn't that it was ugly, as Mary Margaret had picked it out special a few months ago because it had the same shabby chic look that she liked and its muted tones fit in perfectly. The darn thing was just so low to the ground that Emma cringed when she noted it was the one free space in the room and found herself dreading the time when she could have to get out of it. There was no delicate way to do that.

So feeling graceless and awkward, Emma stood up and walked over to Belle, kneeling down next to her and wondering if she had the right words to say. She started simply with a hello and asked her if there was anything wrong with the food. Belle made a swipe through the items on her plate with her fork and gave a smile that came nowhere near reaching her eyes.

"We're planning an attack on a man I have loved longer than not loved," she said in a trembling voice. "I felt like a fool when I figured out what kind of man he was and now I feel like a traitor for this."

"You can't second guess yourself," Emma said, giving in to the soreness of her muscles and sitting on the floor with her legs crossed. "He's done some horrible things, but that isn't why we're doing this. It's the threat of what else he could do."

"I can't even defend him," Belle said sadly. "I used to do that all the time. It was natural for me, a reflex. Now I'm not sure there is anything I could say that would make this better. Belle's plate trembled in her hand. "I pushed people away for him," she said. "I didn't trust some of the best people in this town because he said they were the real problem. I feel isolated from everyone because I know they look at me and think that I should have known better or that I was somehow a part of it."

"I'm not sure anything I say will make you feel any better," Emma said. "You can't beat yourself up over his behavior or his actions. It's not fair for anyone to expect you to know and stop what he was doing, but you did. The moment you found out, you stopped him. I'm always going to be grateful for that."

"He's the Dark One," Belle said with a cutting laugh. "I can't really pretend that I thought it was just a fun nickname."

Pursing her lips together, Emma tried to catch Belle's eyes. "People tell us who they are," she said. "They may not tell us in words, but they always tell us in the way they treat us and how they behave to others. You wanted to see him as a good person. I get that. It isn't a bad thing to try to put the bad things about people aside in the hopes that there is something better underneath that."

"But so many people have been hurt and even more could have been," Belle said. "How can people around here not blame me for that?"

"Belle," Emma said softly. "One of the best things about you is that you want to believe the best in people. You want to trust them. Nobody has ever accused me of that one. But you truly believe that people can be good and that people want to do the right thing if they have the opportunity. You truly believed that by loving him and willing him to be a better person that Gold could change. No, it hasn't worked out, but that's not a bad attribute. If you only trust and love the people who are perfect and without flaws, you're going to spend a long time waiting. And let's face it, if such a perfect person exists, what the heck is he or she going to want to do with people like us?"

"Emma," her father said approaching. "Your mother and I were thinking that maybe we should all get some rest and regroup later." He smiled sympathetically at Belle.

Emma groaned, leaning back and placing her palms against the floor. "I still feel like we're missing something," she said. "Some little something that…"

"We'll figure it out," he promised.

Gathering herself together, Emma smiled again at Belle. "You know," she said smiling. "I don't know if you are aware, but my mother keeps the good stuff in the back of the freezer."

"The good stuff?" Belle asked, finally lifting her eyes to meet the blond woman struggling to get up off the floor.

"Oh yeah," Emma said with a grin. "There's ice cream and unless someone found it, there is frozen cookie dough in there."

_**A/N: I think I am going to let this play out a bit longer. We'll see how it goes.**_

_**I need to thank a guest (anonymous) reviewer for some laughs. If you dislike this story/plot and dislike my writing of Emma, I have to ask why you are bothering to read it. I only read things and topics that I like, but that's cool. **_


	21. Chapter 21

Emma hated staying still and doing nothing when there was a battle to be fought. So her remedy for the situation when she and Killian returned to the apartment was to continue with her packing. He'd gone to take a shower, trimmed his facial hair, and read a few of the instruction manuals on the new boat all the tune of the ripping tape and growing list of four letter words as she tried to build boxes and package their belongings. She'd finished the shelves, managed to go through all of the bedroom drawers, half the closets, and started on the kitchen when he finally got her to stop for more than 30 seconds.

"Love, we'll find them," he said. "I promise."

"I feel like I'm just waiting for them to attack. You've practically got a target on your back."

He lifted his head a fraction and looked at her quizzically. "I feel your pain," he said. "Yet I'm not sure we have much choice. We don't know where they are so staging a surprise attack is not an option. Do you have any ideas?"

"Not really," she said, pulling her head and upper body out of the lower cabinet next to the stove. "I'm trying, but my techniques work better on deadbeats and bail jumpers than magical forces." She contemplated the three frying pans in the cupboard, attempting to figure out if all three would fit in the half full box and if she should hold one out until the actual moving day. "I'm just…"

"It's perfectly acceptable to admit that you're afraid," he told her. "Fear is something that comes quite naturally." It was not a tease or a challenge, but instead a request. That's what had made her stop short without a biting response back to him. He rarely asked much of her, instead taking on most of the emotional lifting himself.

She placed one of the pans on the stove and packed the other two. "I'm not afraid for myself," she said. "I'm afraid for you. If he does something to hurt you, I don't know if I can handle that." Glancing at him, she saw that he was wanting something more from her, a deeper understanding.

"I appreciate that you can concede that," he said thoughtfully. His hand dropped the manual and scratched at the skin on the back of his neck. "You have been known to run in the opposite direction rather than admit such distress."

"And you won't let me apologize for that," she said flatly. "So I'm not sure what you want me to say."

The hair on the back of his head stood on end as he raked his hand forward. "Perhaps we should have a real conversation about it," he said. "We are both bad at admitting our fears about anything, but most especially each other."

"And you think now is a good time," she said, waving her hands about to indicate their location. "I'm on the floor of our kitchen. We're waiting on four magical beings to attack us. And if they don't attack, we've got four dwarfs, my father, and my son coming to help us move our stuff into our cottage. Yet you want to have a heart to heart." She sealed the lid on the box and labeled it with a black marker. "I think you just don't want to help pack."

"Are you accusing me of delaying?" he asked.

She stood up as gracefully as she could and jutted a hip out with her fists digging in solidly. "No," she admitted. "Maybe it's just me. You know I'd rather do anything else."

"Would it help if I went first?" His eyes scanned her, resting briefly at her eyes before he walked the few steps toward the kitchen table. "Though, I'm more acquainted with instilling fear than removing it."

"You're not afraid," she said, gripping the back of the chair across from him. "I know you. You're not really afraid, not like me. You're just saying it to…"

"I'm afraid of losing you too," he said quietly. "Not to the Dark One or one of his sycophants, love, because you can take on any one of them. No, I'm scared that you'll finally find that this," he motioned to himself and then to her, "is too much for you. You scare me when you shut me out or run away. Just threatening to do so makes me lose sleep. And with our child on the way, I feel that much more like there is so much to lose."

"Killian," she said, "I…"

"Perhaps it is because I loved you for so long without your reciprocation. Perhaps I have put too much stock in what I always knew we could be together." He shook his head sadly. "I don't fear the loss of you from death. I fear you separating us because you leave. Your happiness is a priority to me, but I'll be damned if I could easily accept that you'd be happier away from me. If you choose someday that you wish to move from here, I'd go with you. If your family and the others here want to return the Enchanted Forest, I'd not follow without you. I cannot imagine a fate for me worse than knowing you are out there in any realm without me by your side."

She looked down at her hands, her knuckles whitening. "You are better at this," she said, shaking off the dread. "You fight for me every time you've had to do it. You do so willingly and without complaining. I don't have that same track record." She frowned, pulling her hands away as he reached out. "No, I need to say this before you try to comfort me because I know that you will." Her right hand reached up and pulled the low ponytail over her shoulder, stretching out the strands of hair absentmindedly. "I'm not used to someone looking at me the way you do. I thought I would be by now, but it still feels odd to me. Don't get me wrong. It's incredible. You could probably convince me to rob a bank by looking at me that way. You look at me like I'm something precious and something…perfect…like I can do no wrong. But Killian, I do the wrong thing sometimes. Hell, there are days when everything I do is wrong. And you still look at me like that."

Dropping the hand from her hair, she wrapped her arms around her middle. It was not so much of a defensive move but one of comfort. "It is a lot to live up to," she said. "It's a lot to face. I don't want to disappoint you, but sometimes I know that I do that. At first it was because I wasn't ready to let you know that I felt something for you. Then it was because I thought you might stop caring about me if I wasn't everything you thought. And then each time I let myself love you and feel comfortable with you, I scare myself because I realize that I don't feel complete anymore without you. With every other relationship I've ever had I knew that it would hurt if I lost them or if I left them. But with you it is so much more than that. It isn't just the pain of losing you that scares me. It's knowing that I'd never get over it. I'd never get past it."

He remained quiet, waiting for her to look back up at him. He waited for their eyes to connect. "We have some of those fears in common," he said with a sad tilt of his head. "When I first came to realize my feelings for you, I was ashamed and humiliated. It wasn't that I had those feelings for you. You deserve to be loved and worshipped, not because of your status or because you are the savior. You deserve that because you are incredible. And I couldn't help but see myself as lacking." His right hand ran along the tip of his brace covered left arm. "It wasn't just the hand. It was everything about myself. For I couldn't see how someone like you could ever come to care for someone like me."

"You are not lacking," she said vehemently as though someone else had suggested the idea to her.

"Darling," he said. "I certainly felt that way with you and your family for quite a while. And each time you pull away or threaten to run from me, I feel that perhaps I was right." Closing his eyes, he swallowed hard, only reopening his eyes when he felt her hands grip his. "My greatest fear is failing you so that you leave me. I am terrified someday you'll see me as others do."

She reluctantly let him pull his hand back, a look of embarrassment crossing his face after stating his fear. "Killian, I thought we moved past that," she said. "I love you. You know that. It isn't about titles like pirate or princess. It's about two people loving each other."

"Aye," he said, attempting a wavering smile at her. "On my good days I know that."

"And then come the days when your wife is an idiot?"

"Those days are more difficult," he admitted, chuckling lowly.

"Those days suck," she conceded.

The rattle of the radiator and the hum of the overhead light was the only sound in the apartment. "Promise me that you're going to be careful," she said, finally breaking the silence. "I'm not expecting you to stay home while I run off with Regina and my father straight into danger. I'm not stupid."

"I promise," he said. "Would it be too much to ask for you to make that same vow?"

She smiled at the earnestness his voice. Raising her right hand as if in court, she gave him her most serious stare. "I, Emma Swan Jones, promise to be careful and I swear to be at your side for the rest of our lives."

His next words were drowned out by the sound of a loud knock at the door. She shrugged at his curious glance and walked past him to the foyer. A quick look through the peep hole revealed that it was a warmly dressed Regina on the other side.

"Regina," Emma said as she opened the door against a cold gust of air. "I don't think you've ever…"

"It's not a social call," Regina said, practically marching into the room. If anyone should have an assembled posse following her, it was the former mayor. She looked ready to dictate orders at any moment. "I came to see you and the pirate about our problem."

Not in the mood to play coy with the other woman, Emma pointed to the kitchen table and considered opening a bottle of wine, but decided against it. "I can hardly wait," she muttered, taking her own seat at the table.

Regina was not a woman to mince words. She pulled her chair up and stretched her hands out on the glass table top. "We aren't going to find them," she said as though delivering the weather on television. "Not if they don't want to be found."

"So what do you suggest, your highness?" Killian asked, a bit annoyed that the woman had not only barged in but seemed to be in a negative frame of mind. "Should we pretend they aren't out there?"

"No," she said just as stoically. "I think we need to do something." She looked at them as though she were expecting applause.

"Like what?" Emma asked incredulously. "Offer them candy and pony rides? This is Rumpelstiltskin. They aren't children who can be bribed."

"I'm aware of who we are dealing with," Regina warmed. "You forget that I know the most about Maleficent than anyone in Storybrooke." She bit out the words as though they were sour on her tongue. "I'm the one who has the most background with this crew."

"I don't think anyone has forgotten your knowledge of Maleficent," Emma bit out, folding her arms across her chest. "I'm having a hard time understanding why you are so eager to fight her. Weren't you friends?"

"At one point," Regina conceded. "You have to admit that gives me a bit of an advantage here."

"We can all agree that any knowledge in this situation is advantageous," Killian said. "Your highness, you offered some sort of suggestion as to a solution. What would that be?"

"Ahhhh, yes," Regina said. "I suppose that you could say our hands are a bit tied so long as they are hiding. They are experts at it and no amount of magic on any of our parts is going to reveal their locations."

"De ja vu," Emma muttered. "I think we have clearly established the fact that they are hiding and that we can't find them until they want to be found. Quit being a drama queen and tell us your idea."

"We offer a little bait to see if we can draw them out," Regina said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Precisely what bait?" Killian asked, rubbing his hand on the edge of the table. "What could the four of them all want?"

Emma's eyes narrowed suspiciously as the woman waited to answer. She knew the answer. "No, Regina, no," she said. "It's too much to ask of her. She's struggling as it is. You can't expect her to put her life on the line for all of us."

"We'd be there with her," Regina challenged. "I'm not sending her to her death. I just think that seeing her would be appealing for Rumpelstiltskin that he might drop his guard momentarily."

"And how would that help us with the other three?" Emma challenged. "They aren't going to care about Belle."

"I can guarantee that where he goes, so do they," Regina said somewhat mysteriously. "Package deal and all that."

"I think it's a bad idea," Emma said, shaking her head. "Belle's been near tears ever since she forced him over the town line. She can barely function some days. I don't think it's a good idea to put her anywhere near him. Why don't we try the dagger? One of us could use it to summon him."

"He would expect that," Regina said. "We need the element of surprise."


	22. Chapter 22

"I don't think Regina's the best choice to talk to her about it," David ventured, rubbing his shoulders in his own mock massage. "Regina's gifts don't include subtlety or nuance." The next morning was exceptionally bright with the sunlight, though muted in the sky by clouds, bright against the whiteness of the snow. Emma had already tilted the blinds to avoid the glare in the office.

"Then who should do it?" Emma asked. "I'm still not convinced this is the best idea."

"I was thinking your mother," David responded, not acknowledging her doubts. "Or maybe you."

"I'm not known for my subtlety either," she said with a grim look to her face. "I'm a little more blunt than most people prefer."

Her father lowered his hands from his shoulders and grinned. With a cock of his head to the side, he seemed to appraise her. "I don't know, Emma," he said as though the words in his head were troubling him. "You've been getting a little soft lately though you still get in a mood easily. I think it's the pirate."

She swatted at him and walked over to the table closest to the door. "Did you bring me hot chocolate?" she asked. "That's a sure way to put me in a better mood."

He nodded and smiled at the momentary childlike grin from his daughter. That's why he had braved the ice drops that fell from the sky that morning to run into Granny's as his wife and son sat snug at home. He'd known when he asked her to meet him at the station that she be there in an instant, probably complaining about needing sleep or the lack of progress they were making. "Go ahead," he told her, feeling much like a father telling his child she could open her Christmas gifts.

Emma nodded and reached for the small foam cup of hot chocolate that he had picked up for her that morning, smiling a bit at the idea of warmth and chocolate all rolled into one. He picked up his own larger cup of coffee, removing the plastic lid and pouring in a package of sugar. "Tired?" she asked, lifting the cup to her lips.

"Hmmm?" he asked, already sitting down across the room at his desk. "Not particularly. Neal was actually good to us last night. Only one wake up cry."

She looked back at the cardboard container on her desk and frowned. "Then why the extra cup?"

"Hook," he said nonchalantly. "I figured he would be here."

"Figured or hoped?" Emma laughed. "You complain when he's here and say that he's distracting me, but when he isn't here you miss him." The laughter that peeled from her was lighter than normal as she watched her father get flustered.

"Married man," he declared again, holding up his left hand. "I just thought he might be here this morning since you have an appointment and all."

Emma bit into her lip a bit too hard. "What do you mean by that?" she asked.

He watched her expression go from worry to annoyance and back again. "I just…" he coughed. "I just thought he might be going with you."

She looked at him over the rim of the cup suspiciously as he fumbled with the folder in front of him. "What do you know?" she asked. "Because seriously that is an odd assumption – even from you."

He looked down at the papers in the file sheepishly. "Nothing," he protested weakly. "I know nothing. I mean it isn't like you'd keep something major a secret so what is there to know?" A slow crimson wave grew on his face.

"Granny, right?" she asked, frowning that even something as personal as her condition was not a secret within the town of Storybrooke. Looking down at her abdomen, she was sure she saw no signs of her pregnancy. "I'm going to…"

"What?" the prince asked, surprised. "No, no, no." He looked at his daughter's annoyed faced and wanted to laugh. "Regina," he finally admitted. He ducked his head down a bit as if afraid of her wrath.

"How did she know?" Emma asked, shaking her head. "I never told…" She was going to have a talk with her son about telling Regina things about their life. She wasn't planning some huge announcement, but still she wanted to be the one to tell her father of the baby.

"Henry," he supplied, "He told Regina that you weren't feeling well. I know how your husband is about you and assumed." He unwrapped some form of breakfast sandwich that Granny had been serving recently, scrambled eggs spilling out the sides and onto his napkin. He frowned and tried to put them back between the slices of toast.

"You assumed that I was pregnant because Henry said I wasn't feeling well?" Emma said, sounding dubious that her father could jump to such a conclusion. Her mother was a likely candidates, but her father? He barely acknowledged her marriage and even less the idea that his daughter shared a bed.

"Pregnant?" her father choked out. "I didn't…I mean…I thought…Well, damn…"

If she had been watching the conversation between two other people, she would have laughed. But since it was her conversation with her father, she could only groan. "Then what did you mean?"

He shrugged innocently. "I was thinking that you were stressed or under the weather. I wasn't thinking…Oh God…Are you pregnant?" He swished the coffee in the foam cup. "Who knows about this? When are you…? Oh God…I don't even know what to say."

"Dad," Emma said, hands on her hips. "I didn't say I was or wasn't. I just thought that…Oh crap. I'm not going to lie about this. Yes, I'm pregnant. And before you start freaking out, Killian, Henry and I were keeping it a secret until the second trimester, but I guess this is turning into the worst kept secret in Storybrooke." Her brows knitted together. "Okay…fine…just say something."

Her father stood there, half in and out of his chair and his mouth falling open. "Pregnant?"

Emma wanted to laugh that he seemed so genuinely shocked, but she was also a little angry that she had just given away her own secret. "Yes," she told him. "About 10 weeks." Her face was flaming with color, standing in stark contrast to his colorless appearance.

He fell back into the chair, plopping inelegantly against the adjustable back. "A baby?"

Emma managed a small smile. "That's it," she said in a mockingly soothing voice. "You're gathering the finer points now."

David shook his head. "Of course this is great news," he said, still not looking at her. "Congratulations?" There was a question in his voice, a soft unsureness that permeated through the air.

"Thank you," she answered. "You sure you're okay there?"

He nodded fast, lifting his cup and throwing back his head as though he were drinking a shot. Frowning, he looked into the cup to find it empty. "I'm just a little surprised," he said. "I…It's stupid. I just didn't expect this news this soon. I thought… Never mind what I thought. Your mother is going to go nuts."

Emma smiled a little less sarcastically. "We weren't really planning on this soon either," she admitted. "We just thought we would see what happened." Giving him a slight shrug, her smile grew a little. "I guess our lack of plans became a plan."

The man raised his head and grinned. "It's great," he said. "I can only imagine that Hook's going into overdrive. Do you think he'll," he paused to choose the right word, "make it the whole nine months without driving you insane?"

"It's been cute so far," she admitted. "But don't let him hear me say that word. He thinks it is an insult to his manhood. And as for telling people. I guess I can't expect you to hold it back from my mother. So why don't we tell her tonight? Think you can keep it a secret that long?"

"Of course," he said, jumping back up and enveloping her in a hug. "I'm happy for you. I really am."

"Thanks," she said letting her head rest on his shoulder for a minute before pulling away.

His eyes rolled as he moved back to his chair. "I'm still not okay with the fact that Hook did what he did to get you in this condition, but I'm thrilled about the baby."

She was about to give a patented answer as the man in question entered the room with his own drink carrier and a bag from Granny's. Emma smiled warmly at the disappointed look on his face that she was already nibbling on the house pancake special. Standing up to greet him, she kissed his cheek. "You are a lifesaver," she told him. "My father seems to have chugged his coffee this morning and you brought extra."

Killian smiled in return and offered his father-in-law a cup, laughing to learn he had one waiting as well. "Perhaps we should coordinate our efforts next time, Mate," he jokingly said. He leaned into Emma just slightly as she wound an arm about his waist and peered expectantly into the bag.

"What did you get me?" she asked, sniffing the paper covered items for a clue.

"I'm afraid I wasn't very creative, darling," he said with a glint of mischief in his eyes. "I too got your favorite pancakes. Now I know why Ruby was looking at me as though I had made a mistake."

"No mistake," Emma said with a happy expression. "I'm happy to have two stacks." She looked guiltily at the steaming box and sighed. "We could share?"

Over their double breakfast, Emma informed Killian that her father was leaning toward using Belle as bait for the Dark One's demise. He did not argue, but she could tell by his clenched jaw and pensive expression that he was having some doubts regarding the plan.

"I know it is not the same sort of draw," Killian said tentatively. "However, I could offer myself as the one to draw him out. His hatred of me would be enough to pull him out of hiding if he felt I was vulnerable enough." He felt Emma's hand grip his arm tightly. "I would not put myself at undue risk. I just think it might be a safer option than subjecting Belle to this."

"No," Emma said adamantly.

David was a bit softer in his answer. "Let's be reasonable," he said. "There is no reason to upset Emma needlessly. Not to mention that I frankly don't want my grandchild's father putting himself at risk. Rumpelstiltskin is mad at Belle, but he would not physically hurt her unless it was the last resort. You, on the other hand, are high on his list of victims. He'd kill you if he could."

Shifting a wide eyed look first to Emma and then to David, Killian's blue eyes practically spun in confusion. "Love," he asked finally, "Did you?"

"Relax," David said with a short laugh. "I sort of guessed. And though I did have a bit of a meltdown, I'm fine now and offering my congratulations."

Emma shook her head at the obvious glee that her father took in tormenting his friend and her husband. She could just see the two of them vying for attention like school aged children. "We need to concentrate on the issue here," she said. "I can talk to Belle, but I'd still feel better if we knew what it was we're expecting her to do. What kind of danger will she be in if she agrees?"

David placed a finger between his thumb and forefinger, slowly tilting it back and forth. His eyes seemed focused on the movement. "Essentially," he said. "We need her to be alone in a place that would mean something to Gold. Some place private, but not off limits."

"So like the well?" Emma asked, taking another bite. "Didn't they get married there?"

"Aye, that would be an obvious choice," Killian responded. "We might be able to have some of us…"

"We were thinking we could set up a way for some of us to keep watch nearby," David agreed. "We'll have to be careful. Magic or no magic, Gold is a very observant man. He's going to know if anything feels off about the situation."

Emma cleaned a tiny spot of dripped syrup off her desk with a napkin. "I don't know about this, guys," she said. "We're talking about a lot of ifs and moving parts. How do we let him know that she's going to be there? What if he is alone? What if he does something to try to hurt her? Where do we hide? Who is going to make the call of when to strike?"

David cleared his throat. "Well, I don't have answers to all of those questions," he said, frowning a bit. "Regina and I talked about it, but given your condition I'm not so sure now. We were thinking that you and Regina would be the two to face him. You both have magic and are good at working together to harness it."

"That hasn't changed because I'm pregnant," Emma said defensively. "I'm still able to do this."

"No," Killian interrupted. "It's not about ability. I'm more concerned with your well-being and the well-being of our child."

Emma shifted in her seat. "So the other suggestion is to send someone in with no magic," she said. "That's a worse idea. If Gold gets his way and sets forth this plan on the entire town, none of us are safe. This is probably our only chance to stop him. If we're going to do it, I'm going to go all in."

Killian looked at her imploringly. "I don't want you or anyone taking unnecessary risks," he said. "It's too dangerous. The bloody Crocodile could very well be on to all of us and be lying in wait. And you and Regina…What about Henry? You think it is wise to send his two mothers into the heat of battle?"


	23. Chapter 23

Emma slipped her coat off her shoulders as she entered the library, noting that nobody was currently among the stacks on such a snowy day. She could see Belle sitting at the circulation desk, her dark hair pulled back from her pensive face as she leaned over a thick volume. Her finger trailed across the words, her mouth occasionally moving as she read the words to herself.

"Hey," Emma said, leaning forward on the wood veneer desk. She could see that Belle had quite a collection of texts, mostly old spell books and journals with pages that were yellowed by time. The woman lifted her head slowly, her eyes rimmed in red from tears that had since dried on her cheeks. "My…"

"Your parents and Regina sent you," Belle finished for her, placing a leather bookmark between the pages. "I figured they would eventually."

Emma quietly moved around the desk and chose the empty chair that had been placed there for someone to use the outdated computer. "Then I'm not sure why I am bothering if you already know."

Belle held up her hand. "Regina thinks I should make myself available so that Rumple might find me," she said. "After the whole summoning thing didn't seem to be successful that was the next logical suggestion."

"You don't have to, you know," Emma said, lowering her gaze to the smaller stack of books with post-it notes sticking up from the pages. Ever the organizer, Belle had color coded her notes according categories. She was a thorough researcher, unfazed by the plethora of information. "Nobody would blame you for being scared about it. I think we'd all understand."

"I need to do it," Belle said softly. "I know that. I can't come this far and not take that final step."

Emma sighed. "Well that was easy," she said. "My parents are going to work on a plan with Regina tonight with all the details. I just know that Regina and I are planning to be there for you. We'll be in the background and whatever happens, we'll step in to help. You're going to be fine."

"Fine?" Belle repeated the word questioningly. "I'm not sure about that."

Emma's chin dipped down lower and her eyes closed. "My mother would be better at this," she muttered. "Seriously though, I don't know if I have the right words to make this be alright."

Belle leaned sideways in her chair, pulling up a tattered book. "This describes the dagger that should control the Dark One. There are pages of rules about who can use it and what happens when one's name is engraved on it. It has diagrams and drawings about things that it can do. Did you know it can purify water? It can predict things. I don't even know if I understand them all." She cradled it against her chest. "This book detailed so many things. It explained how the mind of the Dark One becomes so obsessed with power, greed, and dark magic that he can only see that as his option. But do you know what it doesn't show? It doesn't show how to rid the Dark One of the dagger."

"That's what he was trying to do with the hat," Emma said, swallowing what she was thinking about Killian's heart almost becoming an ingredient in that plan.

"Yes," Belle said with a sad sigh. "His actions were horrible. I know that's all that anyone can see." She trembled. "It's…"

Emma's eyes shot wide. "Belle, you're not thinking that…"

"I'm not excusing him," she answered quickly. "I can't do that. He's chosen power over love. Magic over his family. I can't compete with those things." She shook her head sadly. "I'm just trying to understand, I suppose. I'm trying to understand why he did these things. Why am I not good enough?"

"There are whole books and magazine articles on why that question is something that women should avoid," Emma said. "And there are more than a few movies, talk shows, and workshops too."

"So I'm not the first to ask it?" Belle asked, wiping her eyes with the back of one of her hands. "I'm going to ruin my make up."

"You are so not the first to ask it," Emma said. "We should all wear t-shirts with that written across the front of it. And as far as make up. Who cares? What's a good cry without some black mascara stains and puffy eyes? They are the badges of a bad day."

Belle sniffled. "You know," she said, pausing to hiccup away a sob. "You had a good suggestion about that cookie dough yesterday. Maybe we could get some more of that?" Through her tears Belle smiled. "Maybe we could even find one of those books."

Emma grinned. "I think that's a plan. You finish up here. I'll get the cookie dough. And we'll meet at the loft. We can strategize while we eat."

Emma slipped back into her coat, giving Belle both a reassuring smile and hug before she found herself walking toward her car to head to both the store and her parents' loft. Her stomach clenched at the thought of putting anyone else in danger. Knowing that Belle's true risk was more emotional than physical did little to assuage the guilt she felt for dragging someone else into the fight.

As she climbed the steps to her parents, Emma clutched the shopping bag in one hand and the railing in the other. Her steps were heavy and her mind reeling with the ideas of how to make this plan work out. She paused the process of thinking about it only briefly when she heard the muffled but obvious conversations of Killian and her parents. She truly did not miss the thin walls of the loft though she did miss her parents sometimes.

Her father greeted her first, hugging her tightly and asking in a hushed tone if she was ready to tell her mother of the baby news yet.

"Can I get my coat off?" she laughed as her mother swooped in to grab the bag.

"Cookie dough ice cream?" he mother asked, a perplexed look coming over her. "I thought I had…"

"I kinda told Belle about that," she said, smiling as her mother swatted her. "You should be happy that you now have a new partner for eating it at 3 a.m."

"I am," her mother said, placing it in the box shaped portion of the freezer. "I'm just sorry that I can't eat it all myself."

Emma shook her head as David implored her with his eyes to tell her mother, knowing that keeping any secret from her was killing him. However, her mother was not in a listening mood as she talked about dinner and some the recipes that she had seen on one of the food channels. When Emma said she was just in the mood for a sandwich, her mother practically threw a fit at not being able to experiment. Relenting, Emma found herself mixing some sort of flour concoction for something her mother said would be a crust as her mother diced and sliced vegetables.

"Tell her," her father mouthed as he bounced his son in his arms. To which Emma again shook her head negatively, as who wants to give news to anyone holding a knife.

Her mother finally left her prep work to pull out a bottle for her son, placing the plastic container in front of her husband. Emma's hand swooped over to grab it, raising the eyebrows of both her parents. "Killian," she said to her husband who was currently helping by washing off everything that needed to be chopped. "Why don't you feed the baby?"

Her father smiled in realization of his daughter's plan. It would make a good jumping off point. Plus if Mary Margaret was at all upset at the news – and why should she be – she would be reluctant to attack her daughter's husband if he was holding her child. Killian balanced the baby in one arm and tilted the bottle toward him easily.

"You're getting pretty good at that," Emma said, elbowing her father in the ribs as he reached over her for a carrot.

Startled, the prince looked at his daughter and son-in-law before realizing that he was supposed to say something. "Yes, Hook's a natural at it," he said, unconvincingly.

All eyes turned to Mary Margaret, who had not so much as batted an eye at the exchange. She was holding the knife again with one hand and running her fingers along the recipe. Her mouth moved as she checked off each of the ingredients.

"Don't you think, dear?" David tried again.

"What?" his wife asked, scooping the finely chopped items into a mixing bowl. "Oh yeah, sure."

Emma giggled and watched her husband just shake his head. "Mom," she said, cautiously waiting for her mother to respond.

"Yes?" her mother said, pouring a bit of olive oil into the ingredients and trying to shake the bowl like she had seen on television. "Anything wrong?"

"No," Emma said, tentatively. "I was just wondering if we might add to vinegar or some chili peppers to this."

"Well," she said, inspecting the coating of the vegetables in her bowl. "I'm not usually comfortable deviating from a recipe, especially the first time I try it."

Emma's mouth turned down dramatically, making Killian chuckle as he realized his wife's technique. "That's too bad," she said sadly. "I've been craving vinegar lately. That and spicy. I swear it is all I can think about sometimes." She sighed dramatically. "You don't think I've been gaining weight, do you?" She backed away from the counter and stood profile to her mother.

Mary Margaret's eyes never lifted from her work. "No, I think you look great."

David choked on the carrot he was eating. "I don't know," he said between coughs. "I can see a little bit of a change."

Emma frowned, having seen no such evidence herself. "I'll go with her answer," she muttered.

Killian could not keep the lopsided grin of amusement off his face. His wife was obviously exasperated, as was his father-in-law. The funniest to him was his mother-in-law's utter cluelessness at the frustration brewing around her. Shooting his wife a sympathetic look that asked her for a chance to try, he shifted his position into Mary Margaret's sightline if she would bother to look up.

"Milady," he broached carefully. "Neal seems to like this new bottle design. Did you purchase it here in Storybrooke?"

David clamped his mouth down in a silent chuckle as his wife finally looked up with disbelieving eyes trained on Killian.

"I…uh…" she said, switching her glance to David. "We got those at that store near…"

"We got them here in town," David said, rescuing his wife. "There's a good baby supply store near the library." He shot a look over at Killian's earnest expression and strong resolve not to smile or laugh. It was impressive.

"Love," Killian managed to say to Emma, "we should check that out soon." He smiled at her brightly, indicating it was her turn to talk.

"Of course," she said, pressing her hands into the dough to knead it. "We can check it out on my next off day." She pretended not to see her mother's stare that was beginning to transfer from confusion into awareness.

"Emma, are you…" she began to ask, failing to finish the question.

"Looking for a sale?" David finished for her, again trying not to laugh.

"Emma?!" her mother said, ignoring her husband's snide remark.

Killian looked down at the baby, who was oblivious to his mother's dramatic discovery. He was snuggly drinking from the bottle and kicking his feet happily as his brother-in-law smiled.

"Yes, Mom?" Emma asked, snorting inelegantly as her mother's eyes grew wider.

"Are you pregnant?" Mary Margaret finally asked, ignoring the laughter that escaped from both men. Her daughter stood there looking shocked that anyone could ask such a question.

"What gave you that idea?" Emma asked, joining the others' laughing. When she noticed her mother's smile and exasperated head shake, Emma nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, we're having a baby."

Mary Margaret's reaction was just as enthusiastic, pushing past her husband to hug her daughter and beckoning Killian to join the hug with her other arm. Questions flew out of the princess's mouth so fast that Killian and Emma had a hard time keeping up or answering before she was at it again. Each time David tried to reign her in, she shushed him and reminded him that he had been holding out that information on her since that morning.

The group was all smiles when Belle made her way back, trailed closely by Regina and Henry. As plates passed around the table the group tried to make light of the fact they were eating together. Most offered compliments to Mary Margaret on the culinary efforts, as well as conversations about the new paint color Belle had selected at the library and Regina's success with a counter potion that had worked on Marco earlier that day.

Emma sat back, having had her fill of the food, and watched for a moment. Her son was gleefully telling her father and husband about some prank another child had played at school. Her mother was comparing notes on deciding if produce was fresh and ripe with Belle, as Regina chimed in her own cooking experience. It was such a normal moment, one that she wanted to commit to memory before they all went on to challenge the dark forces aligning against them. She wanted to remember the sights and sounds of her family – rag tag and unconventional as they were.


	24. Chapter 24

_**A/N – The real world is coming back into play – work, family, and school – so I'm going to try to update once a day or every two days. Thanks for reading, reviewing, following, making this story a favorite, and offering ideas.**_

Mary Margaret held the ladder secure with her one foot and hand as she waved to her daughter and son-in-law from the front porch of their new cottage. She was happily helping her husband change out light bulbs to more energy efficient ones and threatening the dwarfs with bodily harm if they dared to drop anything.

"I thought we were waiting on the big stuff until tomorrow," Emma said, pecking her mother on the cheek with an awkward sideways hug. "I just wanted to borrow the truck for a few boxes."

Her mother was waving off the complaints. "Emma," stop being a control freak. "This is a beautiful day and everyone was available to help. Ruby, Belle, and I even set up your kitchen."

Emma bit her lip and elbowed Killian's ribs in response to his laugh that was obviously a nervous teeter about how she would react to anyone organizing her life. "Thank you," she said as sincerely as she could. "I appreciate it." Inside she could see Belle placing throw pillows on the new couch and Ruby – fresh off her anecdote – was flirting with one of the delivery men.

"Your mother couldn't help herself," David responded as he began to descend the ladder. "She's a bit of a control freak herself." He dodged his wife's own elbow. "How's my grandchild?" His eyes brightened.

"Probably looking for a place to plug in a game console," Emma said with a chuckle at her parents' annoyed reaction. "Oh you mean the baby."

Killian, thinking it better not laugh at the expense of any of them, followed a dwarf into the house and began inspecting the furniture placement. He was not about to start a battle with any of them over his wife's smart mouth and sardonic sense of humor. He'd been the brunt of it himself.

"Healthy, growing, and has a strong heartbeat," Emma said with a smile. "Everything is good and on schedule." She had rescheduled her appointment after Dr. Whale turned out to be the only doctor available during her first time slot. She had told Killian that she would not go to a doctor who could comment on the family resemblance between certain private areas.

"You heard the heartbeat," Mary Margaret half squealed and half moaned. "Oh….I think that is…"

Emma laughed. "I didn't know you were such a prenatal fan," she teased. "Next appointment you can come along." Though the idea of her mother hovering over her as she sat with her feet in the stirrups was not a comforting one. "You've had two babies. How are you still excited about this stuff?"

"I didn't have the benefit of a full pregnancy in this realm," her mother reminded her. "I had an enchanted necklace predicting your sex, not an ultrasound." The brunette shrugged her shoulders upward and giggled. "It's just exciting. Aren't you excited?"

Emma looked toward her father, hoping he would be of some help, but the goofy grin that her mother wore while asking questions about her pending grandchild was on his face too. "It's going to be a long nine months," she muttered. "But for the record, I'm happy and thrilled. I'm just not really a…"

"We have some more boxes." Emma whirled to see her son lifting more than he could handle out of the back of the truck. He swayed a bit and then recovered, smiling widely as Will Scarlett snickered.

"You got Will to help?" Emma asked, turning back to her parents. "Is that a good idea? He has sticky fingers."

"Community service," her father explained, moving the ladder over. "It's fine. We've been keeping an eye on him." The man snickered as Will's voice boomed toward Emma about some of her belongings and Emma bluntly pointed out that those boxes had been sealed for a reason.

Throwing a look over her shoulder at her parents, Emma walked to her son and removed one of the boxes from his heavy load much to his loud protest. "I thought you were going to Regina's?" she asked.

"We're moving," he said. "I couldn't really not be here. You'd hide all my good stuff and tell me I had to do my homework to get it." He scoffed and tried to walk around her, but she blocked his way.

"Whoa there," she said. "I was just asking. You know I don't want another argument with her about where you're sleeping." She shifted the package in her hand. "So any ideas, yet?"

With the low light under the trees and the way he buried his face into the scarf around his neck, she almost missed the flush on his cheeks. "No," he said into the yarn of the scarf. "None."

"We'll think of something," she said. She looks at him and tries to remember how she felt when she first heard the words tumbling from his lips that he was her son. She missed that sometimes, that sweet little boy with his wide eyes and complete optimism that she could do anything. He was about to be a teenager, recently invited to a girl's birthday party.

"It has to be perfect," Henry said, his voice almost a whine. "Not a gift card or something like that."

"We'll find the perfect gift," she said consolingly. "We've faced worse challenges than this. Did you ask Regina if she had any ideas?" She and Regina had begun a weekly lunch meeting where they discussed Henry's progress in school, friends, schedule of extracurricular activities, and anything else that might need the input of both women. But with all that had been going on recently with Rumpelstiltskin and the other villains bearing down on the town, their conversations had been distracted in that direction.

"God no," Henry said, visibly flinching at the idea. "When I mentioned that Grace was looking at me at Granny's the other day, my mom said we should consider a restraining order. And when she found out we had been texting, she threatened to take my phone away and told me that my phone is only for emergencies."

"Your grandfather could have some ideas," Emma said as they made their way from the truck to the house. "He's a bit of an expert on these things. I'd suggest Killian, but I think his technique is more than you need right now." She snickered and then felt ill at the idea of her son approaching some school girl with a flask and an eyebrow waggle.

"I'd rather not," Henry said, casting a side glance. "He's Prince Charming. That's a lot to live up to, you know?"

Emma laughed, looking up to see her mother and father embracing on the front porch. It had been unsettling at first, but she'd come to appreciate the fact that she not only had two parents but those two parents were madly in love. "Good point, kid," she said.

They carried the boxes up to his bedroom and managed to unpack two of them before she heard Killian's voice from the stairs asking her to come take a look at something. She called to him that she was currently helping Henry put sheets on the new bed when Killian's face appeared in the door.

"I've adapted relatively well over the years," he said, looking at his step-son's efforts to put a pillow in its case. "I can steer a ship, cook a fine meal, fight off any number of foes with a sword, hold a beautiful woman, but I have yet to finagle a pillow into its case without extreme difficulty."

THe pillow pinned down by Henry's chin and his hands desperately pulled at the thin blue fabric. He bounced up and down in the hopes that somehow gravity would assist him in his efforts. Emma was biting her lip to keep from laughing at her son's graceless bouncing. "You're talented as you seem to think, pirate," she teased as the tucked the top sheet under the foot of the mattress. "But I'm still impressed."

Killian shook his head. "Your parents have decided that curtains we hung in the dining room are upside down," he said a bit annoyed. "Do you want take that on or shall I?"

"You came up here to tell me that?" she said, looking at him from over the top of the folded comforter she had just picked up. "Seriously?"

"Maybe I needed a break from the action," he said, laughing. "Got any more boxes to empty?"

Henry pointed with his foot to his baseball collectibles. "They need to go on the shelf," he said. "I'll organize them later."

Emma threw the comforter on the bed and smiled. "Still scared of my parents?" she asked.

"Love, I'm not afraid," he said. "I'm merely cautious of anyone who might wish me bodily harm. One can never be too vigilant when it comes to parents of a lass."

Emma winked at Henry who had finally placed the pillow in its case, though a bit crooked and wonky. "That's probably good advice," she said, praying that Killian would not follow it up with something inappropriate. "I'll go deal with my parents and help Henry get his room ready."

She was part way down the stairs when she heard Henry exclaim in surprise at something that Killian had said. Shaking her head, she decided it was easier to pretend she didn't know than do damage control. Looking into the dining room, she watched her mother argue with Granny over the right direction for the curtains. Again, it was easier to ignore that fight than join in on it. Picking her coat up off the arm of the chair that had just been delivered minutes before her arrival, she slid outside and filled her lungs with the cold air.

"It's a bit warmer than it was earlier," said Belle, who was seated on the top step with her knees up under her chin. She patted the weathered board next to her. "Plenty of room."

Emma placed herself next the brunette and dug her hands into the coat pocket. "I'd ask why you're out here, but I assume it is just a bit much for you in there," she said. Neither woman looked at the other, both staring through the trees out at the water.

"Your family is great," Belle said. "I'm not complaining about them. I'm not really complaining about anything. It's just a bit busy and I needed a chance to think." The heels of her shoes dug into the lower step as she rocked back a bit.

"I can understand that," Emma commented. "Why do you think I'm out here?" Emma stretched her legs out in front of her and crossed her feet at the ankles. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to intrude. Do you want me to go hide someplace else?"

Belle shook her head no, but still did not meet her friend's eyes. "My father came by today," she said softly. "He has hated Rumple since day one. He's told me time and again how horrible he was and that I was wrong about him. Did you know he changed his mind right before our wedding?"

Emma turned her head a little to see if Belle was crying, but the brunette's face was dry. "I'm sure that was a hard conversation."

"It was an I told you so conversation for the ages," Belle said. "And I can't even argue with him." Belle ducked her head toward her knees, the tears threatening to fall again.

"I don't think he wanted you to argue with him," Emma offered. "He was probably just mad that he'd been fooled too. It's hard to admit you're wrong about someone, but it's even worse as a parent. To know that he wanted to protect you and he didn't because Gold had him believing that everything was okay."

Belle's breath was coming out in little white puffs in the cold air. "It's going to be like this – people looking at me like I somehow knew but didn't tell them. I know, I know, I know. This isn't my fault. He was responsible for his own behavior. It doesn't help me though. It doesn't make me any better of a person for having believed him and stood by him for all this time." She wrapped her arms around her legs and sat still for a moment. "That's why I'm going to do it. You call Regina. You two set it up. I'll do whatever you need me to do. We're going to take him down once and for all."

_**A/N: Reviews motivate me in this cold weather. Love to read what you think!**_


	25. Chapter 25

_**A/N: The action picks back up a little in this chapter. Since I was only hinting at her pregnancy for the first part of the fic, I never had her with morning sickness. So she gets a little taste of that in this chapter too. Concerned and protective Killian is too much fun for me to skip.**_

The first time Emma even had morning sickness, she was sitting at Regina's formal dining room table going over maps and old spell books with the former mayor Belle. Thankfully the two women ignored the green pallor of her skin and the way she broke into a sprint to the powder room. She already had too many people trying to protect her and she certainly didn't want to add two more.

Emma's hands circled the cup of mint and ginger tea that Regina had offered her when she returned, staring into the murky depths of it and listened to their voices. Her eyes felt heavy as Regina pointed and circled spots on the map in front of them and detailed the strategic hiding spots. Emma knew that Regina was intimidating when in a position of power, but more than that, the woman was a planner. So far she'd explained the main plan and four different contingency plans.

"You'll wait here," she told Belle, a long finger pointing to an area on the map. "You can't move from this general area or it's over. We can't follow you around so you have to stay where we can see you." She uncapped the red marker in her other hand and drew a circle around the area in question.

"I understand," Belle said, her own fingers reaching out to touch the red circle that Regina had drawn. "How soon do you think he'll show up? I mean…am I to wait all night for him?"

Regina brushed her raven hair back with one hand and blinked at the young wife. "I'm not a mind reader, but I think once he knows you're there that he will be fast to arrive."

"We won't leave you there all night," Emma interjected. "Don't worry. If it looks like he's a no show or if anything is odd, we'll pull you out of there." Her mouth was set to a grim line as she watched Belle clutch at the neckline of her shirt as though there was a necklace there. "You're going to be safe."

Belle nodded curtly. "So let's skip ahead then," Regina intoned. "You're here waiting and Rumpelstiltskin is going to approach you. You're going to need to get some information from him. Namely if he has magic or not. Do you think that's possible for you?"

Belle's hand fluttered at her neckline again, nervously twisting. "I think so," she said. "Just ask him out right?"

"If that's how you want to do it," Regina said. "You know better than us how he'll respond." The former mayor leaned back on the heels and watched the other two women process her words. "If he has magic," she continued. "Then we will have to somehow bind him to avoid any problems, but I get the feeling…"

Emma's features clouded. "I am all about being careful, but let's not speculate. We simply don't know if he has it or not."

"I realize that you have the plague or whatever this is," she raised her hand almost royally. "But I do know what I'm doing."

Emma interrupted the woman again, rubbing her temples with two fingers each. "That's why it is important that we go with the information we have and not spend so much time on the what if's. There is no need to make this so complicated." Emma pouted her lips firmly and dug her hands into the wood of the table. "Now what about us. Where are we and how will we drag him in?"

Regina's eyes narrowed as she contemplated saying something to Emma or blowing her off. She chose the former and with little interruption. She detailed their attack and even demonstrated a few of the magical techniques that she was suggesting. Both of the women with magic bounced energy off the other and Emma felt those last dregs of adrenaline leaving her. When Regina almost hit here with what Emma assumed was a ball of fire, it was decided that it was enough practice for one evening.

When Emma finally made it to the cottage that evening, she was ready to sleep. That's the only thought she had other than the one about the porch needing some sort of comfortable furniture, but even that had to wait. She'd thought that she would have had one last night at the apartment, but her mother's stubbornness, her father's gumption, and her husband's inability to say no them if it benefited her in any way meant that the apartment was almost completely empty and she was at her actual home.

The sound of her shoes on the stairs echoed probably a little too loudly, she thought when she came in through the side door in the kitchen. Her yellow bug sat between two mountains of boxes in the detached garage and she reminded herself that they should probably have a light installed out there since it was darker than she anticipated. Henry's door was shut tight, but no light was on and only the low hum of a radio that he liked to keep on all night was any indication that someone was actually in the room. She cracked the door just a hair to look in on him and laughed that his sleeping pattern was much her own. All the covers and sheets that had been neatly tucked in were now in disarray and only covered his middle as legs and arms protruded from all directions and his face was buried in the crevice between two pillows.

She wanted to rearrange him into a more comfortable position, but she knew that would mean a risk at waking him up. So after watching him lying there motionless except for his breathing, she quietly closed the door and crossed the hall to her own room.

Killian was still awake, his attention focused on some dusty tome that Belle had suggested a few days ago and that Emma had refused to consider. His eyes immediately lifted and a smile broke out on his face at seeing her. The book was relegated to the nightstand. "I think we made good progress," he said after asking her how she was and what the night had brought so far.

Tempted to throw herself down beside him in her clothes and all, she fought back against her need and undressed until she could throw on her favorite warm pajamas. "That's good to hear," she told him rolling back onto bed and letting her head become cradled by the pillows. "

Without moving her body, she shifted her head slightly to look at him. His concerned expression was sweet, if not a little suffocating. "You know how the doctor congratulated me and told me I should thank God that I didn't have morning sickness?"

"Yes," he said tentatively. "You have been feeling well so far?"

"We celebrated too soon," she said with a groan. His confusion was evident. "Tonight at Regina's I think I lost not only my lunch, but yours as well. Morning sickness sucks."

"But love," he said, "it's 10 p.m."

She wanted to laugh, but that would have meant the dull ache in her temples would turn into a raging headache. Her eyes fluttered. "That's just a name," she said. "It can happen at any time of the day."

"Anything I can do?" he asked. "Something to drink or perhaps some crackers?"

Her face began to take on that sickly green tone again. "Let's not talk about it," she said. "Shhhh…if we are quiet it will think we're not here."

He chuckled and laid down next to her, not daring to jostle her in their bed. With his fingers he plucked back a few of the errant hairs. "I love you," he whispered, his mouth near her cheek.

"I love you too," she said drowsily. "Did I set the alarm?" She was asking herself, unable to remember if she had even taken off her jeans, but the idea of lifting her head to look at the control pad that she knew should be blinking would have meant more energy than she thought she possessed at the moment.

He paused, looking up at the control pad in their bedroom. "It's got a red light and a green both illuminated," he said, raising an eyebrow at her. She knew he was unfamiliar with such a device, but with the house's location away from other residences, Henry's insistence that he be allowed to stay alone sometimes and Emma's feeling that perhaps a security system would help her feel more comfortable, meant that she had one installed. Killian would be reluctant to use it, but it would be there in case.

"Good," she said sleepily. "I'm smarter than I thought." He pulled the cover up over her, watching for a long moment until she cocked one eye open and told him to stop. "I know you're being sweet right now, but I can't take it. I'm tired and I want to sleep."

He chuckled. "Good night, Emma," he said, kissing her lightly on her forehead.

He read for another hour or so, only occasionally looking at his sleeping wife. David had warned him that it would get worse, as she was surely as feisty and stubborn as her mother. She'd probably work up until her water broke and even then he wouldn't be surprised to see her asking about a case in between contractions. She'd continue to push herself beyond all reason with the determination that she had to do more and help more people. "Don't argue with her," David had said, his hand firmly on Killian's shoulder. "Support her and help her, but don't try to make her feel guilty. And whatever you do, never say I told you so. That's like waving a red flag in front of a bull."

She was mumbling something about her head hurting, her brow furrowed even in her sleep. He lifted the blankets carefully and padded to the renovated bathroom and dug through the half emptied box of toiletries and medical supplies for the tiny bottle of Tylenol that he knew she preferred for a headache. Opening it was a challenge, but he only spilled three in the process. Carrying the two Tylenol and a glass of water, he carefully walked to the other side of the bed and placed them on the dark wood of the table. He hated to wake her up, knowing that she needed her rest. Still he hated the idea of her in pain so he softly said her name and touched her shoulder.

"Hey," she said almost weakly. "What's going on?"

"You would conversing in your sleep," he told her, smirking at that little twinge of embarrassment that shown on her face. "Nothing too embarrassing, love."

"Good," she said, craning her neck back as she spoke. "What did you bring me?" She looked over the edge of the pillow to the glass and two pills sitting there. Thanking him, she swallowed them down and smiled again at his concerned expression. "I'm not used to this," she said finally. "When I was pregnant with Henry I didn't really have to deal with the rest of the real world. I was in jail so I wasn't working or planning to take down Rumpelstiltskin. Hell, it was jail so I didn't have to worry about anything but following the rules."

He looked at her with the softest expression she could imagine. "You know I want to take care of you," he said. "If I could protect you and our baby from all the idiocy of this world and these foes, I would do anything within my power and ability."

"I know," she said, taking another sip of the water. "I want to protect you too, but you understand that this is a fight I have to do. I need you to believe in me right now because the idea of this is freaking me out a bit."

"You don't have to ask for that," he told her, cupping her cheek in his palm. "I'd believe in you if you told me that you wished to fly around the earth with only your arms to keep you aloft. You are stronger and more prepared for this battle than anyone I've ever met. It doesn't stop me from worrying about you though. I know the Crocodile very well, and to say that he is devious and crafty is an understatement. It would give him great pleasure to defeat you."

She tilted her head so that his warm hand felt as her pillow against her skin. "I know he's not going to play fair," she said. "He never has, but I also know we have to do this. We can't just sit and wait for him to get whatever he's doing together. It will be too late then."

"Your mind is made up," he said reluctantly. "I'd never tell you to not perform your duty. I couldn't bear to think of you neglecting that part of yourself. So promise me that you're going to be cautious for your sake and our child? I'll do as you ask and stand back, but I need to know you're going to be safe in my arms again at the end of this."

"No place I'd rather be," she assured him. She closed her eyes. "This room is spinning. Mind if we get some fresh air?"

He looked to her worriedly, holding up a single finger as he approached the double doors that led to their balcony. "Perhaps I should carry you, if you're lightheaded?"

She waved off his concern and stood up from the bed, sliding her feet into the knit slippers that she loved on cold nights. She turned off the alarm and let him open the doors. Standing in front of him, his chest against her back, she breathed deeply, stifling a small cough.

"Someone must have a fire in their fireplace," she said, pulling her fisted hand from her mouth. "That smoke…"

His head tilted to one side, eyes hooded in concentration. "That does not smell of a wood fire," he told her, breathing in another whiff of the air. "Where is it coming from?"

Emma coughed again, her eyes watering from the smoke and its overpowering fumes. "We should go back inside," she said, pulling him to follow her. She fumbled to shut the doors behind them, still coughing a bit from the scent. "That was horrible."

He opened his mouth to speak when her phone sprang to life with the familiar ring of her father. Swallowing a swig of water, she answered, coughing into her father's ear.

"Emma," David said with a sympathetic force in his voice. "You'd better come back to the apartment. Someone's set it on fire."

_**I love hearing what you have to think of this story. Please share your thoughts!**_


	26. Chapter 26

_**A/N: Someone – can't go check who now since I'm at work – said something about why did I have Emma using an alarm system. There is a reason for it. Just be patient. I touch on it a little bit here, but it is going to become clearer soon. **_

The sun had already begun to rise high in the sky by the time the firemen left what debris remained of the apartment building. Emma had stood off to one side watching the flames lick at the dark night sky and heard the crackles as every inch of the two story building became a part of the burning fire. Her throat felt tight and raw as she stared at the remains of two metal staircases that climbed to invisible floors that no longer existed.

"We're lucky," Killian told her, rubbing her back with small circles. "We could have lost everything."

Her eyes fluttered, red from the smoke that had blown at her and the tears that had fallen. "It's silly but I hate that our first home was destroyed." She shook her head. "So silly…"

"It isn't silly," he told her, looking at the ruble himself. "Like you said, it was home. And as sentimental as you claim not to be, that was our first together, but it's not the last. Truth be told I feel more at home with you in any location than I ever could alone."

One of her arms wrapped around his back and pulled him closer. "You're right," she said. "I need to remember that home is more than just a place or a building."

He rested his lips at her temple and let her soak in the sight for a moment longer until he felt her shiver. "We should go," he said. "There's nothing more we can do here."

She drew a ragged breath and coughed. "This wasn't such a good idea," she muttered, pulling his arm toward the yellow car. She looked down at her phone and grimaced. "I missed two calls from Regina." Swiping her finger across the screen, she called the woman back. Killian could only hear her end of the conversation which consisted of few context clues other than resigned sighs and annoyed grunts of semi-approval.

"Did she find anything?" he asked when Emma disconnected the call.

She shook her head. "Nothing final from the fire department, but she said it looked clean as far as magic was concerned. There were no signs of the residual effects of any spells or magical elements."

"Those are good tidings, are they not?"

She pursed her lips carefully and looked at the ice that now caked the parking lot from the hoses of the fire truck. "I suppose it confirms that Gold does not have any of his magical powers," she said with a sigh. "I'm not sure that is good news though. It could very well mean that he's more dangerous and more of a threat than before."

Killian stared out the front window of the car and chewed his bottom lip. "It could certainly add to his desperation," he said slowly. "The man has lived for centuries with a singular goal of obtaining more magical powers and possessing the most powerful magic of all." He cleared his throat. "If he feels he has nothing to lose, he could be much more reckless and therefore daring."

Emma nodded. "Regina wants us to come to the house to meet with her. She's already gotten Henry off to school and she thinks maybe we should refocus our efforts as a group."

They drove through town to where the houses were a little bigger and sat farther apart with large gardens and well-manicured lawns. The first time Emma had seen the house where Regina was raising Henry she had felt intimidated by the size and structure of the house. She knew that Regina came from money from the way she carried herself and the way she looked down her nose at the more casual Emma.

Regina welcomed them in and before the door from the kitchen to the dining room quit swinging, she was waving her hands in the air for a protection spell that would leave them all safer. "I put one your new cottage and on the loft," she said.

Emma looked to Belle, whose pallid complexion had become more sallow overnight. She was nervously picking at an errant string on her sweater and grazing her teeth across her bottom lip.

"When I thought we'd have to deal with his magic I was concerned," Regina admitted, shaking her head a bit to fluff her mane of dark hair. "But I realize now that we have an advantage."

"I thought our advantage was Belle," Mary Margaret said, passing a napkin to both Killian and Emma. No meeting was complete without food in her eyes, including a near war council before going after the Dark One.

"Yes, she is," Regina said, shooting a look at the still very nervous looking Belle. "I mean though that without magic, he is unable to sense magic either." She looked a bit triumphant as she said it. When no one said anything, the smile faded a bit.

"Regina," Emma said, breaking the silence. "I realize that Rumpelstiltskin may have lost some of his powers or even all of them, but the man still has his memories. He knows you and I have magic. He's going to have a plan for that."

"Not if he doesn't recognize us," Regina said, squaring off her shoulders. "Come here." She pointed to Belle and Emma and beckoned them forward. "We already know that Gold isn't going to hurt his wife. He may be angry, but he loves her and thinks there is a chance with her."

"There isn't," Belle muttered, looking at the growing thread on her sleeve.

"He doesn't care about reality," Regina continued. "He's a man who has his own perception and to him that is reality." She held up both her hands in front of her and as the purplish glow sprang forth she quickly crossed her hands over each other. "There."

Emma looked down and saw that she was wearing the same sweater as Belle, the thick thread of the yarn between her thumb and index finger. "Holy…" she started.

"Glamor spell," Regina said. "You and I will cast one so that we each look like Belle. He won't know which one is the real Belle and that will mean all three of us are safe."

Emma looked in the plated mirror over the fireplace and gasped. She appeared to be Belle's identical twin sister, even down to the smallest detail. "But won't he know that we're not her if we start throwing around magic?"

Regina's smile of triumph again faded. "It is a temporary spell once I cast it for us," she said. "This is just a preview. And as for him catching on, that's why we have to keep moving. If I throw something offensive or defensive then I must get out of sight before jumping out again someplace else. He won't know what hit him."

"And the three of us?" David asked. "What do you expect us to do?"

Regina brought her hand up to her face level and swept her fingers gracefully. "I'm going to do a cloaking spell," she said. "You'll have a limited range of motion, but you'll be able to see and hear everything. Plus we can see about setting up some sort of weapons with it."

"And it is that simple?" Belle asked nervously.

"Nothing is ever that simple, is it, Regina?" Mary Margaret asked, eyeing her step-mother carefully. "What aren't you telling us?"

Regina placed her hands on her hips and tilted her head up slightly. "I'm not going to sugar coat it," the woman said. "Maleficent is not someone I take lightly. She is attuned to most of my magic, as well as what Emma has been able to show recently. If she has the opportunity, she can counteract most of it with her own."

"So what's the point of cloaking then?" David asked. "Why not just go full out and attack."

"That moment of surprise might be all we need," Emma interjected. "I don't like this either, but Regina's right that we need the element of surprise to make this work."

***AAA***

The sun was already low in the sky when they assembled near the well. Emma knew that this location would be poignant enough for both Rumpelstiltskin and Belle, which could be beneficial in keeping the man from being at his full capacity. Standing awkwardly, Emma and Regina hid with their new appearances – waiting on any sign of the group.

Emma could not see Killian behind her or hear her parents' voices, but she knew they were there behind whatever spell that Regina had concocted. She felt off in the short skirt and heels that dug into the unmelted snow. She tried not to look down, as she knew she would catch sight of the dark hair and startle herself with the new appearance. It was unsettling to feel as someone else.

Looking to her side she saw Belle nod as an indication that they should step forward. Or was that Regina? This was not confusing at all, she thought.

While Rumpelstiltskin might not have had magic, the women in his harem were a different story. Still, Regina's assessment was right. They were clearly told not to hurt Belle, leaving the Emma and Regina safe under the glamor spell. The cloaking spell was another story, Maleficent clearly knew many and most of Regina's most used techniques and easily dismissed it.

The fight was like nothing she had seen before, having fought at most two foes at the same time. Fire balls flew and her own magic seemed erratic at best. If any of them felt doubt, they did not allow it to show, as she would try, fail, and try again. When one of Maleficent's bursts of magic had grazed Emma's head, Killian pulled her back behind a looming oak tree and touched the spot that was now swelling with delicate fingers. The irony that she was asking after his well-being was not lost when he was threatening to rush her to a medic.

"How do you even know it's me?" she asked, lifting up a reddish brown curl with her hand. "I look like Belle."

"I can tell," he laughed. "It is disconcerting though."

She heard Regina's anguished cry and with another look exchanged between them, she rushed back into the action and pressed forward. In the few moments she had felt safe enough she cast her vision in his direction. Side by side with her father, they were battling some woman with an interesting fashion sense. Her mother and Belle were in front of Rumpelstiltskin, a shaking Belle brandishing the dagger once again.

After it was over, there were two bodies that had to be taken the morgue and two captured needing to be dealt with later. Emma and Regina removed their glamor spells and returned to their usual appearances. Killian waved off David's concern for a cut that had sliced clean through his jacket and wounded him. He sprung himself at Emma, wrapping himself around her and waiting for their breaths to steady and equalize.

"We can't celebrate yet," she warned him. Her eyes drifted down his face and her fingers reached out to brush away a bit of dirt on his cheek. "And we need to get you to the hospital about your arm."

"I'm not concerned about that," he said, helping her up from the cold ground. "Watching you put yourself in danger was much worse. I knew you would succeed, but there were still moments…" He frowned as she twisted his arm into the light to better see the wound. "I want to protect you."

She looked up from the gash on his arm. "I'm not a big fan of being protected," she told him. "I'm not used to it." She took one finger and smoothed the lines that formed between his eyes. "Now come on. Let's get you seen to now."

_**A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing. The reviews really help me stay motivated. **_


	27. Chapter 27

David sat in the waiting room at the outpatient area of the hospital and waited on his son-in-law, holding a magazine in one hand a cup of coffee in the other. It had been a long night of everyone receiving some attention. A few stitches were sewn. Bandages were placed and Belle had an x-ray of her ankle after she twisted it during one of scuffles. He wasn't that much worse for the wear with a scrape or two that would heal within days. The worst of the injuries were those of Killian, who had a larger laceration on his arm that required the stitches and a visit to a physical therapist for evaluation.

Emma had stayed for quite a while, her own injuries minor and not worthy of the doctor's attention. Only after Killian promised to stay and be seen to did she leave to get Henry. Though David had already received two phone calls from her and he bet Killian had received twice as many.

"This was a bloody waste of time," Killian said as he emerged through the double doors. His arm was not in a sling, but hung limply and a pristine bandage peaked out from the cut material of his shirt and jacket. "They want me to come here once a week for six weeks."

"Minor concession given that you could benefit from it," David grumbled, throwing the magazine down and downing the rest of the coffee. "We can get out of here?"

Killian nodded and followed him to the truck, climbing inside and running one hand over his face. "It's been a long day," he said. "I look forward to sleeping some that away."

David nodded as he pulled the truck into the light traffic. "You did a good job, by the way," he said, his eyes staying firm on the road ahead. "I saw how you tried to protect her."

"I was doing what I said I would," Killian answered honestly. "I can't see myself letting her go into a dangerous situation without some way to protect her – even if she is more than capable of doing it herself." Using his palm he rubbed his eyes. "I have a bit of a favor to ask of you."

"A favor?" David repeated, unsure what it was about.

"Aye. Emma's tried a few times and I've gotten some of the basics, but I think I'd like to learn to steer one of these vessels." He looked out the window at the passing scenery, frowning when he heard no answer at first. "I realize that you are busy with your work and your family, but I was hoping that you might..."

"You want me to teach you to drive a car?" David clarified.

"That was the idea," Killian answered. "I suppose I could ask Emma again, but patience is not one of her stronger features. She becomes quite frustrated with me. I have mastered parts of it, but I'm still working on the other parts."

David slowed the truck down for a curve. "I think I might like this idea," David said, bobbing his head in agreement with himself. "You're finally admitting that you don't know it all."

"I have never met a man who knows everything," he responded. "I would never claim such a thing."

"Tomorrow at 9," David said. "I'll meet you at Granny's and we'll see what you know."

***AAA***

"No," Henry said firmly, crossing his arms over his chest and staring at the shelf in disgust. "I'm not buying that. It's stupid."

"It's cute," Emma said, picking up the stuffed elephant and holding it aloft. "It's adorable."

"It's for a five year old," Henry protested. "She's turning 13, not 5." Huffing, he turned around and headed toward the opposite wall. In a store that was barely larger than an average studio apartment, Emma had counted no less than 20 trips around the various shelves and displays in search of the perfect gift for a 13 year old girl.

"I'm getting tired," she told him. "Pick something out."

"Tell me what to get," he challenged back. So far he had vetoed each of her suggestions as too personal, too generic, too girly, too boyish, too expensive, too cheap, too much like something someone else was getting her or Emma's personal favorite – just don't like it. Her stomach was rumbling with hunger. Her husband was recovering from a nasty cut during the fight with Rumpelstiltskin and she wanted to be done with this shopping trip.

"I'm about to tell you to put some cash in a card and be done with it," Emma said. "Seriously. It's a gift for a birthday party, not an engagement ring." She chastised herself for being so harsh with him, as he's just being careful not to send the wrong signal to a girl that he likes but doesn't quite know what to do with that information. She sighed. "Tell me about her."

"Who?"

"Her," Emma said. "The girl we're shopping for a present to impress." Her hand rested on her hip and the other was out toward him with her palm upward. "You don't have to give me every detail, but some would be good. "What do you talk about when you're together? Does she have any hobbies? Do you have a nickname for her?"

"Mom!"

She shook her head and let him pick up, inspect, and replace each item in turn. The cashier rolled her eyes as they circled the store again. Henry's hand reached out to touch a small ceramic music box, lifting its lid and hearing the tinny music that played. A small smile on his lips, he closed it back and expelled a breath.

Emma was tempted to ask him if that was it. Had they finally found the item that he wanted to purchase? She did not want to jinx it. So she tried to be encouraging. "It's pretty," she said. "And it's not too big or small of a gift."

He lifted it into his hand and held it a bit closer. "You think she would like it?" he asked. "I mean it doesn't say anything about me liking her, right?"

She wanted to laugh, as she knew that any girl would analyze a gift from a boy to death. There would be conversations with her friends about what it meant and what he did and didn't say. "I think she would like it," Emma said. "And it is appropriate."

And after all the trips around the store, he headed to the cashier with no second thoughts. Emma hoped that finding a birthday card would be an easier chore, but she was thinking that perhaps Regina should get that task. She grinned at the proud way he paid for the purchase and supervised the wrapping of it in tissue paper. He ran back to her with the bag dangling in his right hand and his left arm snaking around her for a side hug as they exited.

He did not ask her about grabbing a bite to eat at Granny's, as that was just the next logical step. They slid into their booth and were ordering before she even realized. He was half way through a grilled cheese and a bowl of soup when he looked up at her a bit nervously.

"How do you kiss a girl?" he asked, then shook his head. "I don't mean like the mechanics. I get that. I've seen that."

Emma was glad she wasn't drinking at that moment because she would have spit it out. "Then what do you mean?" she asked, not so much for information but to stall her answer. "Seriously, what do you mean?"

To his credit Henry didn't blush. "I guess I mean how do you know when to do it? Is there like a sign?"

She sighed, her lips narrow and firm. "It's not something you can plan," she said. "I guess you could, but it isn't as good. This is not…Okay, I guess you could just say that you'll know when the time is right. It will just feel that way."

"I'll know?" Henry's face wore a combination of annoyance and confusion. "I don't get it."

Emma grunted and looked at the table. "Are you sure that I'm the right person for this conversation?" she asked. "I don't feel like the right person."

"You've kissed people before. You kissed my dad. You kissed Walsh. You're always kissing Killian." He shrugged. "I thought you knew what you were doing." He sounds disappointed.

"It's just hard to explain," she said, frowning. "Okay, let me try again. You know that there are different ways that people can kiss? You can kiss someone like a friend or a family member to say hello or goodbye. You can kiss someone to console them, like a kiss on the cheek or on the head. You can kiss that way to celebrate something."

"But what about…" he interrupted.

"Let me finish," she said. "When two people like each other they usually spend a lot of time together before they ever kiss. They probably don't talk about it, but they think about it a lot. They imagine it, but it's always better or worse than that. And most of the time, in my experience, when you kiss someone it is because you can't wait any longer or because you can't see yourself not kissing that person. It is just the only logical step you can take." She looked up to see if he understood.

"So you're saying I will know when the time is right because I won't have any other choice," he said, crinkling his nose. "That sounds simple."

"Yes and no," she said. "Because that feeling that you can't go on without kissing that person is a wonderful, terrifying, horrible, and great feeling all at the same time."

He laughed as she orders hot chocolate, knowing that her face a bit pink from the conversation. It was not always easy to fluster her, but he could manage it sometimes. Those times were always fun.


	28. Chapter 28

Killian's face broke into an incredible smile as he saw her, pulling her close and promising again that the cut on his arm was of no consequence. She held to him tight, a little longer than normal as she clenched her eyes shut and rested her cheek against his chest.

He was not sure of her reaction, as they had just seen each other earlier at the hospital. She had seemed fine then, kissing him gently as she left him in her father's care to deal with some secret mission with Henry. The boy had looked nervous, but he somehow doubted that the mission had been the true cause of her clinging.

"Is everything, alright?" he asked, searching her expression for some clue.

"Just glad it's over," she said, her sigh hitching a bit.

He frowned a bit, knowing that she did not believe it was over any more than he did. "I hope you're right," he said. "I hope we have fought him for the last time."

Her eyes shifted to the bandaged arm, inspecting the white material. "Does it hurt?" she asked.

"Only when you touch it or stare at it?" he teased. "I'm fine, love. It's merely a scratch."

She pulled away completely, backing herself toward the couch. "You were supposed to be safe," she said. "Regina said she'd put that cloaking spell up so that…" She shook her head slowly. "Nothing is ever going to work all the way. Nothing is 100% safe."

He took a step toward her, his eyes still searching for meaning behind her. "I suppose that's why we must stay vigilant. We must…"

"We must put our lives on hold to defeat our enemies," she said, words dripping with bitterness. "I don't want to look back on my life and have a list of people we have defeated and no memories of anything else. My life feels like it is just one battle after another. Everything else just gets fit in where it can."

"It's not like that," he said softly. "You are my life. Everything else is what I fit in around being with you. We can't make our life together anything but significant."

He knew she wasn't convinced, her eyes showing fear as he pulled her back to him and held her. Whispering that it was okay for her to be scared, he told her that he wanted to be that rock for her. When she did not want others to see her tears, he was more than willing to allow her to cry to him.

She wanted to believe it. She wanted to trust that there would be more moments where they were just Emma and Killian. She wanted to pretend like there would be no more threats to a happiness she both wanted and needed. In the weeks that passed since the showdown, she tried her best to quiet that voice inside her. She tried to focus on her husband, her son, and the baby growing inside her.

The pressure built inside of her. It grew with each passing day and it was not just Killian who noticed. Her father saw that she avoided the two prisoners, not even looking at them when she came in the office. She was usually not there, though, taking patrolling the streets and always finding some minor crime to delay her return. Henry noticed to in the way that she pulled back from Regina's insistence that she practice her magic more for the next time. Again, Emma found excuses and reasons that she could not be bothered or why she did not want to rely on magical solutions to crime.

"You don't trust yourself when it comes to magic," Regina had said, frowning with annoyance. "It is part of you."

"It's not the be all and end all," Emma said. "I know you trust it to be what saves us all, but I don't. Someone is always going to have bigger and better magic. Someone's always going to be more powerful. I'd rather deal with them on a realistic level. I'd rather…"

"Sometimes you don't have a choice," Regina said. "Sometimes the fight will have to be magical."

"And sometimes you do have a choice," Emma said just as firmly. "Sometimes we can't take the easy way out. So you deal in magic. I'll deal in reality."

Even Mary Margaret had noticed that Emma was pulling away from Storybrooke. She spent more and more time at home, claiming she just wanted to be with her family and not with other people who demanded so much of her. So when Mary Margaret packed up Neal and headed to her daughter's she was not surprised to see the woman busily working on domestic tasks. Killian had said she was putting all her time and energy into such tasks.

Emma had started to pick up some of the papers, books, and as sundry items, trying to find each a home in their new house. She couldn't believe how fast things became a mess, how quickly it became disorganized. She bent forward, lifting two magazines that she seemed to remember Henry reading and tossing them on the pile that had accumulated on the coffee table.

"Emma," her mother said, wiping her hands on a towel as she walked into the living room. "Your father called about half an hour ago. The judge is going to hear those two cases this afternoon."

Emma nodded, brushing some crumbs off the table into her hand. "I just wanted to clean up a bit," she said. "This place is such a mess."

Her mother watched her with concerned eyes. "Regina called too. She said she was working on another protection spell for all of our homes. Something stronger…"

Emma brushed past her mother and headed to the kitchen to throw away the crumbs. "I have a good alarm system," she said as she passed. "Cost me enough so it must be good." Her blonde hair was pulled into a low ponytail and her jeans were tucked into the soft leather of her boots. In the weeks since they had faced off with Rumpelstiltskin and three women, her pregnancy had begun to show. Her jeans were tighter and she could no longer wear button down shirts as her material stretched and strained around the buttons. That day she had opted for an oversized sweater and left the top button of her jeans unfastened.

"But magic," her mother said as Emma turned on the dishwasher. "Magic!"

"Nothing about magic is consistent," Emma snapped angrily. "Think of how many times Regina or whoever tells us that the solution is something magical. She tells us that we are safe when we aren't necessarily. There isn't any comfort in that. It's guessing and experimenting until something works or doesn't work. Forgive me, but right now I feel safer with technology than I do with magic."

Mary Margaret sighed, opening her arms to pull her daughter in to a hug. "Emma," she said. "I know that everything has been…"

Emma shook her head no. "I'm sorry. I'm just a little emotional and I'm a little annoyed that every time we try to have normal or simple that this world throws something else at us. More than a little. I've spent my entire life waiting for that next shoe to drop, the bottom to fall out, or the end to come. And out there…" she waved her hands toward the windows to indicate the outside world. "Out there it usually doesn't drop. Crap happens, but life doesn't keep hitting you. You have a crappy day, week, month, six months or a year. It doesn't keep repeating until you can't trust anything anymore."

"Emma, you have to take a breath and calm down. You have to see that this is normal. This is a good way to live."

Emma leaned forward and clutched the back of the couch from behind. "I don't know how to take it," she said. "I don't know how to go to be every night and pretend like tomorrow isn't going to include some new foe that I had read about as a child. I don't know how to kiss my husband goodbye when he seems to have a target on him and I'm so afraid I'm going to wake up tomorrow without him."

Mary Margaret rounded the couch and pulled her daughter toward her. She smoothed her hand down Emma's blonde hair. "Emma, you can't do this," she said. "If you think about what could happen or what you could lose, you're going to miss everything that you do have. You have so much in your life. You have a son who thinks you are badass and great. You have a husband who couldn't be more in love with you. You have your father who couldn't be prouder of you. You have a little brother who lights up for you like you are everything to him. You have me; and I love you so much. You have your career. You have friends. You have a baby on the way. So instead of thinking how horrible life is around here and how we're not really safe or how we are never going to have a day when we don't have a fight happening, I want you to think about all of those good things that are right here waiting when the fights are over. I want you to think how great it is."

Emma let herself relax into her mother's embrace for a moment. "In my head, I know that. I know I shouldn't let all of this get me."

Her mother looked a bit sad when she pulled away. "Rumpelstiltskin is always going to be an issue," Mary Margaret said with a finality that seemed less hopeful and more pragmatic. "We just have to stay ready."

Emma knew that. She knew that Killian believed the same thing and had told her as much the night before. She'd never feel completely safe, always wondering what the man's next move would be, as there was no trap or cage strong enough to contain him. He'd always find a way, even from death, to return and try to claim what he felt he was owed.

At least she was aware, able to see the man for who and what he was unlike some of the others. Belle would still struggle. Killian would still see red. Henry would still hope for a relationship that was not likely to happen. Regina would still feel the pull of a former mentor and ally and the new life she had created. But to Emma the man was simply a man to be neutralized, dealt with and put aside until the phoenix rose from the ashes again.

Emma wanted to avoid the scene at Granny's, the celebration, the questions, the toasts, and the inevitable congratulatory speeches and commendations. So when Killian arrived home, she made no move to get ready for the event. He was hesitant as he grabbed both their coats and approached her. "We should head to the diner if you wish to find a parking spot," he said. "Your father has arranged quite a celebration."

She looked up from her book as though he was interrupting her. "I think I'm going to stay here," she told him. "I feel a little tired."

He draped the coats over the chair and sat down next to her. "It's your choice," he said. "I had just hoped you might want to make an appearance. Your parents will be disappointed."

She leaned her head onto his shoulder and tugged his arm around her. "Is it so bad that I'd rather stay here with you?" she asked. "I just want to stay here and enjoy being safe in your arms."

"I like the sound of that," he agreed, tightening his arm around her. "You always have wonderful plans. I suppose your parents can wait a bit longer."

She closed her eyes, no longer pretending to read the book or bothering to look up at him. "Maybe later," she said.


	29. Chapter 29

Killian cursed under his breath as David showed him for the third time how to shift gears. Steering he understood, as he could compare it to his ship and understand moving the steering wheel would move the vehicle in another direction. Gas and braking were a little harder, but he soon figured those out with the help of David's yelling, "Hit the brake, Hook!" when a tree loomed in front of the window.

"You wanted to learn this," David said, rubbing his temples in frustration. "Now calm down and let's try it again."

Emma would have been a calmer teacher, but he admittedly hated to disappoint her. She would have soothingly told him that he was doing a good job. She would have kissed him when he got something right and smiled consolingly when he messed something up. Unlike David, Killian would not have to worry too much about her bringing up his shortcomings.

"I am trying," Killian said doggedly. "It's not that easy of a task, you know. People in this realm are not born with the ability to drive already ingrained in them. They must learn. I am learning at somewhat of a disadvantage." Her grimaced at the grating sound coming from the vehicle.

"You're not doing a bad job," David conceded. "You'll owe me a new clutch and transmission by the time this is over, but you're going to learn. What do you say we take a break and get a bite at Granny's?"

Killian managed to maneuver them toward Granny's unscathed and even found and secured a parking spot within walking distance. The two men braved the cold day to enter the establishment and be greeted by Granny herself, who was telling some of the patrons of a new selection on the menu.

David checked his cell phone again as they slid into a booth and both ordered their coffee. His eyes and mouth fell at the sight of whatever was on the tiny screen and he shoved the offending device into his pocket.

"Problem?" Killian asked, nodding to where the cell phone had sat on the table. "An emergency?"

"Not hardly," David told him. "Leroy got drunk last night and one of the dwarfs hid his keys. So now he's claiming that his van was stolen. It should only take a few minutes to settle." He ran a hand through his sandy hair. "It was just another late night last night and I don't really have it in me to go deal with their arguing and shenanigans."

"It sounds as though it is a minor incident," Killian answered. "Yet I can see why it would be difficult to deal with such while lacking proper rest."

David looked toward the counter to see if their coffee was on its way. He frowned at the sight of no waitress near the near empty pots. "Usually Emma and I have been able to split such responsibilities, but…" He paused and looked toward his son-in-law. "Mary Margaret was very concerned about Emma yesterday. She said that Emma was in tears. Then you guys skipped out on the dinner last night…"

Killian shifted in his seat, fully expecting David to grill him on the whereabouts of his daughter. "Emma's struggling with a few things," he admitted. "I'm afraid that she's become a bit wary over her role and the constant influx of vitriolic citizens." Killian flashed a smile to the waitress who delivered their drinks and ordered for himself as David sputtered out his own order.

"That's hardly a new occurrence around here," David said. "We are always under siege of some kind."

"Aye," Killian said, lifting his cup and swirling it a bit before taking a sip of the hot liquid. "She's feeling a bit overwhelmed that such things fall to her and that perhaps she is not capable of balancing that responsibility with the other areas of her life. As for last night, she seemed unwilling to leave the house and face everyone. I did not push her to do so." He frowned. "I understand and accept her role as the savior to these people, but she is struggling to understand how she can meet their expectations and those of her own making."

David nodded glumly. "I noticed that she was a bit upset the other night, but I didn't think it was anything to be concerned with really."

Killian sighed again, his brow furrowing as he thought of the words that would most accurately portray the situation but not betray Emma's confidence either. "She's very much an all or nothing person," Killian told him. "Emma does very few things that she can't throw herself into completely. And when she is being pulled in different directions, she chooses to care for others first and herself last. It is quite an admirable trait, but right now she's not doing well with that at all."

"Why now?" David asked himself aloud, feeling the phone in his pocket ping and buzz again. "Oh…she's concerned about Henry and the baby?"

"Aye," Killian nodded. "She and I both suffered wounds the night of the attack. I realized afterward that she was a bit shaken by that. She has become very closed off to putting herself or anyone else she cares about at risk. That's a large part of it."

"I didn't realize," David said, shaking his head slowly. "It makes sense though."

"Her strength and confidence are based in her ability to defeat any enemy," he said. "The opposite of that to her is being vulnerable. That's how she is feeling at the moment. While I can identify it, I can't seem to shake her of these feelings."

At the conclusion of the meal, David rushed out to respond to a few of the calls he'd received. However, his daughter was never far from his mind. When a call came in just a little piece away from her house, he thought it was a sign and decided to head over. She greeted him with a wary but careful smile on her face.

"I updated a few of the case files today from here," she said, pointing to a stack of papers on the dining room table next to her laptop. "I think two or three of them can probably be closed out."

"That's good," David said, cautiously examining her face. She looked rested though there were light circles under her eyes and less fire in them than normal. "I was actually wondering if you might be coming back to work soon."

She looked at the stack, her eyes dropping. "I am trying to do a few things," she said. "But truthfully I'm not sure that this is the right career for me."

David's body went stiff and he was that she was giving him a side eye, almost begging him to understand and accept. "That would be your choice," he said, "but I'm not sure it is the right one for you. You love what you do. You always seem to gravitate toward being there for other people, taking care of them, helping them find their happy endings." He swallowed. "You were born for it, but I understand it is hard to do that all the time."

"I'm just wondering when it is going to be over," she said sadly. "Every time I think that we've defeated the worst of them, it comes back. I can't build the life that I need to build for Henry and this baby with that over my head all the time." She gripped the dining chair and shook her head. "When we call Ruby and ask her to help us track someone or when we ask Leroy to help us destroy something, it isn't their lives at stake. They do it and go home. They get a good night's sleep and tomorrow they go on like nothing has happened." She shifted her weight and saw that he wasn't responding.

He pulled out one of the chairs and motioned for her to take a seat while he sat in the one next to it. "Honey," he said. "Is this about your magic? Is this about you not being able to control it?"

She flopped into the chair, arms crossed and her face showing frustration. "No, it's not. I swear it isn't. It's about the responsibility. That fight with Rumpelstiltskin was about Belle. It was about making Belle feel safe. It was about her wanting away from him. It was about keeping a town full of people safe and out of harms way from three women who wanted to destroy it." She leaned her head back and stared at the ceiling. "Much as I claim I was getting revenge for what he did to Killian or for what they could do to you and everyone else I love, it wasn't my fight. I'm tired of putting myself on the line for this stuff. I'm tired of…"

"Emma," David interrupted her. "Did you know that when your mother was about to turn 16 that there was a horrible drought in the Enchanted Forest?"

Emma looked at him questioningly. "And so Regina did a spell and made it rain?"

"No," her father said. "Snow was supposed to have this lavish birthday party and every diplomat and person of noble birth had been invited. The menu was astounding and it made everyone's mouth water." He listed the food, which Emma barely recognized. "All of that for maybe 100 guests. Snow was to wear this beautiful gown, but she had grown an inch since the last fitting and it had to be altered. So Snow set out with her attendants to go to the tailor's house and have one last run through with the dress. She passed through the countryside and saw all of the people basically starving."

"She gave them the food, didn't she?" Emma asked. She knew her mother had a good heart like that. She was beautiful inside and out.

"That she did," David answered. "But do you know that some of the people in the kingdom thought that her gesture was one of showing off? They criticized her for it. Some people threw the food out rather than eat it. Others ate it and complained that it was not up to their own standards. A few even said the food made them sick."

"That's not fair," Emma said, thinking how disheartened her mother must have been to have sacrificed and not received any acknowledgement.

"No," David agreed. "It wasn't fair. Your mother is a good woman and her heart was in the right place. But it can become challenging to continue to give your all when it feels like nobody appreciates what you do."

Emma looked down at her hands. "I'm not expecting thank you's or parades. I just feel like I'm giving up so much for others and nobody wants to give those things up for any us."

David nodded. "Emma, you've had to learn to be the savior. You've got a great knack for law enforcement and a passion for it as well. You're an amazing daughter, wife, mother, sister, and friend. But there is something you haven't learned to be yet. You are a princess. And while you roll your eyes at the idea, the truth is that the people of this town look to your for guidance and leadership. You've got two choices. Accept that role and understand what it means or shut down completely. The choice is yours to make."


	30. Chapter 30

_**A/N: Thanks for coping with the last chapter or two that were a little depressing/angsty. I wanted to set up Emma having some doubts about why she should even bother fighting so many battles when the same thing happens time and again. While everyone tried to understand, I decided to let David be the one to break through that wall and have a little help from an unexpected source in this chapter. Enjoy and let me know what you think!**_

Killian's hand reached out and found Emma's normal spot in the bed empty and cool. Eyes flying open, he threw back the covers and jumped from the comfortable bed. The room was empty and only the small lamp near the door to the hallway was lit.

Not bothering to put on shoes or his shirt, Killian bolted from the room and down the stairs where he heard the noise of someone rustling around. He took the steps two at a time and found himself with a few of Emma's backside as she threw another jacket onto a pile at her feet.

"Emma?" he asked, rubbing his eyes in the brighter light of the living room. "What are you doing awake?"

Peeking her head around the coat closet door, she smiled. "Sorry! Did I wake you up?"

He shook his head and asked again. "What are you doing, love?"

"I couldn't sleep," she admitted. "I thought I'd get a head start on some work stuff and go ahead on in today. You looked so peaceful. I was going to leave a note though." She pointed to the coffee table where she had scribbled something similar on a yellow sheet of paper.

"Did you get distracted?" he asked, looking at the pile of jackets on the ground.

"Oh," she said, wrinkling her nose. "I'm sorry about that. I went to put on my jacket this morning and it didn't quite fit. None of them do." She looked down at her slightly expanded waistline. "I think you may have married a woman who only wore tight clothing."

He chuckled. "That's not a bad thing," he said. "I am very appreciative of your attire."

"It is a bad thing when the only thing that fits is a poncho," she told him, holding up a faded item she had bought years ago. "I'm going to stop by my parents today and see if my mother has any of her old maternity stuff. Or maybe just go another size up at the store." She stuffed her hands into a pair of gloves with a sigh. "I can't believe I forgot that I'd blow up like a whale."

Placing his hand under her chin, he turned her face to his and kissed her softly before pulling back. "I spent the majority of my life at sea, love," he said. "I've seen many a whale, and you don't resemble one at all."

She ran a hand over her no longer flat stomach. "Maybe not yet."

"Much too beautiful to be a whale," he reiterated. "I would know." His fingers moved up from her chin to her cheek, his thumb running along the soft skin toward her mouth. "You're going to work?" he asked, not hiding his smile.

"I guess it's time," she admitted. "You and my parents have been after me for a while about this." She looked down again. "I'll clean this up."

"No," he told her. "Go ahead. I've got this."

Giving him one more kiss that led to a few more, she laughed and told him that he was more distracting than her current wardrobe woes. He promised to stop in and distract her during her lunch hour.

Arriving near work, she stopped for breakfast before braving the office and her father's "I told you so" stare. Emma's gloved hands pushed open the door at Granny's, the clatter of conversations wafting through the cold air as she entered the diner. The usuals were there, enjoying coffee and plates piled high with greasy comfort foods. With her eyes averted, Emma passed most of them and took the last stool at the counter, picking up a menu to keep up the charade of not wanting to be engaged in conversation.

"Alone?" the familiar voice of Ruby said, sliding a glass of water in front of her. "It's not unheard of but I don't think I've seen you alone in this place in months."

"Just thought I'd have a bite on my way to work," Emma said meekly. "Anything good?"

Ruby huffed and turned to look through the small window to the kitchen. "It is the same around here as always," she said with a roll of her eyes. "Same food, same people, same job…"

Emma nodded, things were usually the same at Granny's, but that was part of the charm. Even the proprietor usually looked and sounded the same with a gruff hello or good morning before ringing up your order. "You look back to normal," Emma said, gesturing at her friend's tight uniform.

The brunette laughed, flashing her white teeth. "Yeah, well, some change can be good," she said. "The spell that hit me was a doozy. I am glad to be back to myself."

"You were certainly different," Emma remarked, thinking about the sweater sets and bulky skirts that Ruby had worn.

"Granny loved it," Ruby said, wrinkling her nose. "She said I looked more presentable, but I'm telling you that it sucked. I may have been classier, but that personality was a bore. I practically put myself to sleep."

Emma saw the older woman slam her hand down on the counter to wake the most fatigued of the dwarfs, her trademark scowl on her face. "I don't know," Emma said. "I think she might have missed this side of you a little bit."

Ruby shrugged. "Either way, I'm happy to be back to me," she said. "Now what are you going to order?"

Emma ordered a plate and watched the woman sashay over to the window to place it with the cook. She winked over her shoulder. "Looks like things are back to normal," she called out. "All of us are back to our wonderful selves and no bad guys in sight. Maybe I should knock on wood before I say that again." She pounded her fist three times on the wood table next to the kitchen door. "Wouldn't want to jinx it."

"I guess so," Emma said slowly, stirring the water with her plastic straw. "You think there will ever be a time when there isn't a crisis?"

Ruby pushed her red painted lips together and thought. "I guess there are times that aren't like that. Maybe there are even places or realms where we don't have to deal with all this. I can't say I've heard of them though."

"So we're just stuck living from crisis to crisis," Emma said, frowning at what seemed to be confirmation.

"I suppose," Ruby answered. "I don't see it that way though." She looked down the counter and saw that all her customers were eating. "Look, you've read that book of Henry's, right?"

"Sure."

Ruby came back to stand in front of Emma, leaning her forearms on the counter. "A lot of bad stuff happens in that book, right?" she asked. "I mean some seriously evil stuff."

"Yes," Emma said, agreeing though she wasn't sure of Ruby's point.

"Why do you think that is?" Ruby asked with a slight rise of her shoulders. "Why do you think someone would want to read about all that stuff going down? You grew up outside the Enchanted Forest, so you know how people think about us."

"You mean fairy tale characters?" Emma asked, tilting her head in confusion.

"Yes, and when you came here you dismissed that idea pretty quickly. It's crazy, right?" She folded her hands under her chin. "But do you know what makes a fairy tale? It's a story about good versus evil. There's magic or something else that people outside of us don't believe in and there is always conflict."

Emma nodded again. "Okay…"

"What I'm saying is that you live in a town that is overrun with fairy tale characters," she said. "You can't really expect it to be like any other place you've lived. You're going to deal with crap like witches and sorcerers or waitresses that turn into wolves on the night of a full moon." She winked. "But while you're dealing with all that evil and craziness, there are good things too."

"Good things?" Emma asked, watching as Ruby sauntered over to grab her now prepared meal.

"Sure," Ruby replied. "All those bad things that happen here aren't the only things that happen. Think about what you've seen and done since you moved here that can't be done in New York or Boston. Think about the good things that magic does. Think about your family. Think about your husband. You've gotten all that just because you finally chose to trust a little boy who came to you and asked you to believe. Isn't that worth fighting for?"

_**Thoughts?**_


	31. Chapter 31

_**A/N: Sorry about the delay. My muses have been a little ADHD this week and this chapter just didn't want to be written. No Captain Swan in this installment, but some other things to tide you over. **_

Mary Margaret had been so enthused at her daughter's request for a maternity coat that she had spent over an hour going through the back of her closet for things to share with her daughter. The bed was full of tops, pants, and even a few dresses that Mary Margaret called essential pieces to any woman's wardrobe when her belly was expanding.

"This would be so cute on you," her mother declared, holding up a red and white polka dotted dress with a large white collar. "A cute pair of red flats and you'd be good to go."

Emma touched the lace edge of the white collar with her finger and thumb, trying not to let her expression indicate how she really felt about the dress. She could not remember having seen her mother wear it, but she rarely noticed such things anyway.

"I'm not sure that it's me," Emma said delicately. "I don't really do dresses too often."

"But it's so cute," her mother said, folding over the hanger so she could hold it in front of her daughter. "And I know your husband loves you in red."

"But polka dots?" Emma said, taking a step back from her mother's appraisal. "That's really not me."

Her mother pressed her lips into a straight line. "Fine. It goes in the maybe pile."

Emma scratched her temple lightly and studied her mother's expression for signs of her emotional state. "I really just came about a coat," she said. "But you're right. The dress is cute."

Mary Margaret smiled. "You really think so?"

"Put it on the pile and I'll see if I have an occasion to wear it."

Mary Margaret picked out more items and piled them so high that she refused to let her daughter carry them down the stairs. "You have to be careful," she said sternly. "No heavy lifting for the mommy to be."

Emma thanked her and held her brother as her mother loaded the trunk of the patrol car with the items. After a joke about tax payer money being wasted, Emma answered her phone to tell her father that she would go out to the woods to investigate. Kissing her mother goodbye, she drove out to where her father had indicated.

Emma trudged past the bridge with a camera instead of a gun in her hand, carefully maneuvering over the uneven terrain in her boots. It was only her third day back at work and she was already slipping back into the routine of random calls for assistance and investigations. Frowning, she saw that the signage for the bridge had again been vandalized with spray paint, adding indistinguishable marks to the R that someone had added to the word toll.

Lifting her camera, she snapped a photo of the scene. Her stomach rumbled in protest as though she had skipped her breakfast that morning. "Calm down, little one," she said, patting the small rounded swell of her abdomen. "I'll get you something more soon." She wanted to laugh at herself for talking to the baby already. It felt awkward at times, like she was actually just talking to herself. Since she had only recently begun to show, she wondered if that was what people thought.

It was a clear crisp day without a cloud in the sky. Emma let the sun shine down on her through the bare tree branches as she enjoyed the serenity of the moment. She felt her stomach rumble again, her free hand caressing the swell again. "I know, I know," she whispered. Turning around she was thinking about lunch when she heard the sharp snap of a twig. She was not alone.

She stilled for a moment, her ears alert and her eyes scanning the thick underbrush of her surroundings. Shoving the camera in her pocket, she called out to whoever it was following her. "I heard you," she said. "Come on out."

She turned quickly as the sounds of one or more people running away became evident. Cursing under her breath, she gave chase in the direction of the noise, pushing past the branches and impediments in her way. Her feet slid on the ground cover of leaves and twigs as she raced down an incline and again as she skidded to a stop a few feet from the road.

"I know you're still here," she called out, her voice seemingly echoing in the silence. "I just want to know who you are."

Her eyes scanned for any movement, picking over the landscape with a trained search. She took a step closer to some of the low lying scrub, stooping to take a better look.

"It's just me, Sheriff," a small voice said from behind the tree next to her. "Don't shoot."

Emma stepped back as the young teenage boy she'd seen busing tables at Granny's stumbled out from his hiding spot. He wiped the muck and leaves off his knees and looked up through his hair that hung messily from his face. "Howard?" Emma asked in surprise. "What are you doing out here? Why did you run?"

The boy's freckled face turned red as he looked over his shoulder. "I am supposed to be at school, ma'am," he said, tracing a line in front of him with the toe of his sneaker. "But I sort of skipped."

"The school is a good nine miles that way and classes have been going on for a few hours," Emma said, pointing. "That's skipping. There's no sort of about it."

He nodded with a frown. "Sorry."

She watched him look over his shoulder again and immediately dip his chin to his chest. "You have anything to do with the graffiti on the bridge signs?" she asked. "I was out here taking a look at it."

"No, ma'am."

"You sure?" she asked, looking at the boy's hand in his pocket. "What's that in your pocket?"

He looked up startled. "Just my phone," he said, pulling out the smart phone and holding it in his palm. "I didn't do anything."

She frowned again, pointing back toward the trail that would lead to the cruiser. "Come on," she said. "I'll take you back to school and you can tell me what you're really doing out here." With her hand on his shoulder, she guided him back.

Later at the station, she was picking her fork through the grilled chicken salad that her father had brought her for lunch. "Something was off about that kid," Emma told her father for the fifth time in their 20 minute discussion of the incident. "I get skipping school. I did it myself. But I never went and hid in the woods. I would go to the arcade or at the very least go to a friend's house to play video games and maybe have a beer or two."

"There aren't that many things to do in this town, Emma," her father pointed out. "Maybe he was just bored."

"It doesn't explain it," Emma said, pushing aside one of the peppers that she disliked. "I'm telling you that there's something going on there."

David took a swig of his drink and shrugged. "If you feel there is, look into it," he said. "It won't hurt."

Emma chewed on another piece of the chicken and swallowed. "I think I will," she said. "But for now I've got to head to the doctor." She flipped the lid shut on her salad and tossed the remaining bit in the nearby trashcan. "I'll check in at the school on my way back."

"Anything wrong or is this just a check up?" David asked. When Emma looked a little put out by the intrusion, he laughed. "I'm just checking if I need to go into worried dad mode, proud grandpa mode or what?"

"Just a check up and scheduling the 20-week scan," she said. "No problems other than his or her insatiable appetite for anything with garlic or jalapeño. Killian caught me eating a pepper raw the other day."

David cracked a grin. "Your mother craved meat when she was pregnant with you," he said. "No matter the meal she was always requesting lamb or venison. With your brother it was salty foods."

"Babies and pregnancy cravings are weird," Emma said, crinkling her nose. "I've also been loving peanut butter. Next time I want a pepper, I might dip it in some peanut butter. But that might gross Killian out at this point." She laughed as she slid her arms into the coat she had borrowed from her mother. "He seems to be having symptoms of his own."

David guffawed at the idea. "That I need to see," he said. "What kind of symptoms? Swollen ankles, strange cravings, morning sickness?"

"I'd tell you but I'd have to kill you," Emma laughed. "Why do you and Mom bring the baby and come over for dinner this weekend? You'll see what I mean then."

"Can I bring a camera?" David asked, still chuckling. "I need evidence if I'm going to milk this for all its worth."


	32. Chapter 32

Emma clutched the pamphlet in her right hand and held her husband's hand with her left. While she was always happy to get updates on the baby, her mind was fixated on the teenager from before. He had been hiding more than a truancy, but she could not quite put her finger on it.

"Everything okay?" Killian asked her for what seemed the eighth time since the doctor had released them for one final test. She'd smiled the first few times, exuded a few platitudes and excuses the next few, and now just stared blankly at him. "Something at work?"

She nodded. "Bad wife and mother," she said, pointing to herself with the pamphlet that the doctor had given her. "I'm sorry. I am just letting that boy get to me. He was not telling the truth."

Killian opened the double doors with his hip and gestured for Emma to go first. "Love, you said yourself he's a teenage boy who was truant from school. He'd not likely be above telling a few half-truths and lies to protect his intentions."

"I just wish I knew what he was lying about," Emma said. "There's the graffiti, but something tells me this is more."

"You'll get to the matter soon," he said as they entered another waiting area. "In the meantime, this test does what exactly?"

Emma dropped the pamphlet into her pocket and took the clipboard from the harried woman in a set of teddy bear scrubs. "Something about the baby's heart rate and my blood pressure," she said frowning at the six pages she had to fill out. "Nothing to worry about, remember?"

The doctor had said that to them three times. "Best to get out in front of it," Killian repeated the doctor's words. "This realm's magic or..." he stopped to remember the word, "technology is not very comforting."

"It is sometimes," she said, guiding them back to two chairs that were actually together. "We can learn if there is a problem and figure out how to fix it. Much better than the hope and wait scenario."

Medical forms were always tedious, Emma decided, as she tried to remember if she was 10 or 11 when she broke her wrist skating. She felt like she'd filled out hundreds of these exact same forms, each calling for medical history, past surgeries, symptoms, names of medication, and more. When she turned to the page on family history, she smiled and gave a half laugh at herself. Killian looked at her questioningly. "Something amusing?" he asked.

"I just realized," she said as she checked a couple of the boxes. "I never had to fill this page out before. I didn't know my family." She frowned at the next question. "Okay so I still don't know all the answers, but it is kind of cool to fill this out. But I have to say that Storybrooke is the only place I've lived where I am asked if I had any members of my family killed by a plague."

Thankfully the test was easier than the multiple questions about heart disease and vaccinations. A simple monitor that was read after Emma sat for a few moments, walked for a few moments, and lay down for a few moments. If only all procedures were that easy.

"Doctor will call you with the results," the technician said, sticking a pre-printed label on a file. "In the meantime, don't worry."

***AAA***

Belle's footsteps were soft in the grass around the wishing well, as she moved quickly and lightly toward the symbol of so much for her in Storybrooke. Head down, she tried to appear as though it was just a casual jaunt that had brought her here, a coincidence not of her doing.

Her hands gripped the stone edge of the structure and she looked down into its dark depths. She'd been there before, but she felt like a different person now. The old Belle was trusting and credulous, naïve to her husband's intentions and ruthless love of power. She'd felt like an idiot, a stooge in her own story.

"Belle?" Emma called to her, rounding the grove of trees that lined one of the lesser used paths. "Everything alright?"

Her head raised only slightly in acknowledgement. "Fine," she said lowly. "I was just on a walk and ended up here."

Emma nodded and came around to the side of the well, her own hands landing on it and balancing her as she looked down into the water. "I see that," she said. "This place. It's some place special to you and to him, isn't it?"

Belle rolled her lips over her teeth and held even more tightly. "Yeah," she said.

Belle's car length coat was a soft rust color, the waist hugging her hips and the oversized collar framing her face. The wool material stretched tight over one of the pockets with the outline of a dagger evident. Emma could see it and tried not to openly stare.

"I come here sometimes to think," Belle admitted. "I guess I want to know what I missed. Why I couldn't see what others saw."

"If you missed something, we all did," Emma said. "We all let ourselves trust him and think that he had changed." This was something that had eaten at Emma. She, even with her trust issues, had fallen prey to his manipulations. He'd stolen Killian's heart. She'd never suspected that was the case though she knew something was off. He'd conspired against them to allow Ingrid to almost be victorious, but she'd never seen a sign until Anna had said something. While Emma was new at magic, she was a good investigator and skilled at reading people. She knew that with Rumpelstiltskin she'd failed and that had almost cost her everything.

Reaching into the deep pocket of her coat, Belle held up the dagger and stared at the intricate design of the long blade. "I haven't determined how to get rid of this," she said softly. "I don't want it or what it represents." Her hand was shaking and her voice not far behind.

Emma's eyes widened at the sight of the dagger. "Have you read anything on how to destroy it?"

"Fire nor ice shall destroy the power of the Dark One's Dagger," the petite woman recited. "It shall live on infinitely and change form only through the passage of one Dark One to the other." She shrugged. "We can't keep it here."

"I suppose we could find a way to lock it up," Emma said. "Some place that nobody knew…"

"Even if he never gets out, someone will come for it," Belle said. "Someone will want the power that it possesses."


	33. Chapter 33

_**A/N: I apologize for delays. Illness, two tough classes, rough times at work, kids, and a husband make for long hours of non-writing.** _

Emma pulled up to their house as the sun was setting through the trees. She waved to Marco as he passed her on the narrow road, knowing that he had planned to help Killian with the final stages of removing the wallpaper from the nursery walls. She slid in the kitchen door and dropped her mother's coat on the chair as she made her way to the living room where Killian sat in the oversized chair next to the fireplace.

A roaring fire must have been glowing earlier that afternoon, but it was now low and erratic flames that licked the darkened logs. She bent to kiss his cheek, unwinding the scarf from around her neck and turning on the light beside his chair so that he could see better in the darkened room. Lowering herself to the couch, Emma kicked her legs over the furniture's arm and looked pleadingly at Killian who had been studying a book that laid open on his lap. She moaned dramatically, her right arm flung over her eyes and her mouth parted slightly. She could not hear him moving, so with another sigh she moaned again. This time she peeked out from the crook of her arm. He kept his eyes on the book, but a smile was already forming on his lips.

"Something you need, love?" he asked, turning the page gingerly.

She propped herself up on her elbows and frowned. "I'm exhausted," she said. "I'm hungry. My feet are killing me and these boots are way too tight." She collapsed back on the couch with a loud plop. "And you are sitting there reading a freaking book. All I want to do is complain."

Slowly closing the book, he chuckled to himself and walked to the edge of the couch where he deftly pulled her boots off her feet one at a time. Quirking an eyebrow at her, he looked quickly at the kitchen and then back upon her face. "Are you asking me to cook?" he queried teasingly. "What would you fancy for dinner?"

She placed her socked feet on the arm of the couch and pushed herself back to a lying position. "I want…" she frowned again. "I don't know. I'm tired of making decisions." She rolled her eyes as he chuckled and suggested a few things. She settled on pizza and ordered it with a few terse words about having to wait.

"No word from the medic?" he asked, motioning for her to lift her head so he might sit and hold her. She did so and he combed his fingers through her hair as she lay back against his thighs. "I thought perhaps you might hear something today."

"They said tomorrow," she mumbled, her eyes falling shut at the soothing feeling of his fingers in her hair and against his scalp. "Sorry I'm in a bad mood."

"Exhaustion and hunger rarely make a woman an amiable companion," he reasoned thoughtfully, "but I can't fault you for that in your condition. Of course my love for you might also be shading my eyes from seeing you as anything but my beautiful wife."

She opened her eyes to see his blue ones shining back at her. "You're a dork," she declared. "A lovable dork, but still…" Reaching a hand up, she cupped his cheek and smiled as he leaned his weight to her touch. "My lovable dork."

"This exhaustion," he said after a pause, his face turning serious. "I thought you were going to take things a bit slower while we waited to hear what the verdict was about the baby."

"I was just walking and looking for clues about that boy from the woods," she said. "I was hardly exerting myself."

"And yet you are here complaining of your fatigue," Killian said with a slight tsk sound. "Perhaps we should consider…"

Emma's eyes grew wide as she heard his suggestion. "This isn't a 'we' moment," she said warningly. "I get that I have to be a little more careful, but a simple walk in the woods while I look for anything that might have been disturbed is not that serious. The doctor even said I should be sure to get exercise."

"Of course," Killian said, dropping a kiss on her forehead. "I'm only thinking of your well-being. I hate to see you uncomfortable." She softened a bit at that, but the tension was still evident.

As the doorbell rang, Killian slid out from under her and went to retrieve their dinner. By the time he had returned, she was sitting upright with her legs curled under her and one of the comfy throw blankets over her shoulders. "I'm starving," she repeated as he placed the box and the plates from the kitchen in front of her.

She was diving into it like a college student during final exams, grinning at the line of cheese that hung from the box to her plate. She laughed at the way Killian watched her turn her head to try to catch the gooey pizza in her mouth. "What?" she asked, the heat of the meal burning her tongue.

"Quite an inelegant food choice for a princess," he said. "But there is something intriguing about the way you eat it." He took his own bite and followed it with a sip of water.

"No rum?" she asked, ignoring the comments of her royal status. "I thought you never ran out."

"I thought it impolite to drink in front of you," he said with a shrug. She curled to his left side and smiled at his sacrifice. She had not asked him to do such a thing, but it was typical that he would think it necessary.

"I saw Belle," she said, a bit unsure what to say about the exchange. "She's worried about the dagger."

There was a hitch in his breath and he looked away toward the waning fire in the fireplace. She wondered if he was about to attend to it rather than continue the conversation. Then he flicked his eyes back toward her. "I'm sure it is a reminder for her," he said. "Has she determined what she would like to do with it?"

Emma shook her head sadly. "She asked for my help, advice really." His eyes were back on the fireplace, studying it as though it might hold answers. "I don't know what to tell her."

Killian's eyes slid shut and his frame tightened against her. She shuddered at his response. "The Dark One's dagger is not just a charm or a bauble that she will see and remember both the good and the bad. It is a weapon of the highest order and contains all the power that one should not even dare to hope to achieve. There is not destroying it."

"I know," Emma said, her hand stroking down his arm from his shoulder to his elbow. "Any suggestions how to contain it?" She willed him not to tense again, hoping that he could understand the dilemma as something more than just wanting to help a friend. It was clear that his own feelings about the Dark One and how that dagger represented so many things – memories, magic, revenge, redemption. "I shouldn't ask you that."

"I won't deny that obtaining the dagger would be a coup, love," he said flatly. "I spent the better part of my life wishing to destroy the man who possessed it. So to think that it is within my grasp and that I might extract a bit of pain upon him…"

She shifted to fully face him. "Killian…"

"Don't worry," he interrupted. "I have no intention of betraying your trust or that of your parents, Belle, or anyone else in this town. I am merely saying that the desire still rests within me."

She let her eyes search his face, seeing pain reflected there. "You aren't the only one, you know," Emma said finally. "He hurt so many people here. Either recently or back in the Enchanted Forest. They are all struggling too, some more than others. But you are well within your rights to feel anger. Admitting it to me actually makes me trust you more."

"I doubt that," he said weakly, his hand running along his face roughly. "I have given up quests for vengeance to be the man you need and deserve."

Emma pursed her lips together and watched him again. "No," she said softly. "You were already a good man before that. And admitting that it is a hard thing to do only shows me that you are being honest about that struggle."

He shook his head dismissing her words toward him. "You are correct, love," he said. "There are a great number of people who would want to see the Dark One permanently eliminated."

"That's why we have to figure out what to do with the dagger. If we can't destroy it, we must hide it. And we can't let just anyone know that."


	34. Chapter 34

_**A/N: I hope this explains a little more about Emma's magic issues, as well as what they plan to do with the dagger. **_

Regina's face was illuminated by the flashlight she held in her hands, an eerie glow over her skin that reminded Emma of a camping trip she had taken with a foster family years ago. Walking gingerly through the cemetery, Emma approached the stoic woman and gave her a half smile. "I take it you aren't rebuilding?" Emma asked cautiously.

"Not much point," Regina answered, turning the light toward the rubble pile that had been the entrance to the vault where she had kept most of her magical possessions. "It's gone now. Everything is gone."

"I guess you can't just run down to the corner store and buy some eye of newt," Emma said, squinting to see the pile. "Or whatever it is you use."

Regina pointed the flashlight back skyward and sighed. "I doubt very much that you are here to discuss my loss of inventory," she said. "And as for the explosion, I do believe that everyone's memories, faculties and personalities have been restored. So what else is there to say?"

Rocking back on her heels, Emma crossed her arms over her chest. "The dagger," she said simply. "Belle still has it."

Regina ran a long finger over the edge of one of the tombstones and frowned thoughtfully. "And I imagine that is not something she wants," she said. "That dagger controls the Dark One. I'd think she would want to rid herself of that temptation." She laughed tightly. "However, there are quite a few Storybrooke residents who would be more than happy to rid her of it. Your pirate included?"

"Regina," Emma said looking back at the pile of rubble disdainfully. "It is dangerous for it to be in Belle's possession or anyone's really. As you said, there are people who would probably kill for it."

"Yes, they would."

"So we need to find a way to destroy it or lock it away somehow." Emma's eyes narrowed. "You would know best how to do that."

Regina grimaced at the implication. "Having it in possession would have some benefits," she agreed. "My mother sought it and almost killed you and your family to gain it. Rumpelstiltskin lost his own son over this. Yet you are trusting me to help you find a permanent solution for it? I'd think you would want me out of that conversation."

Unfolding her arms, Emma gave a shrug like Henry did when someone asked him about his homework. "I think we have to trust each other on this," Emma said. "It's not really a choice."

Regina nodded and took a step toward the rubble pile. "Your father has requested that the dwarfs remove this pile and seal up what's left of the area with concrete. A person could drop the dagger into that and allow it to be sealed up as well." Her mouth twitched. "It's as permanent and non-magical as we can probably get unless you want to try to bury it at sea or something."

"And what magical solution is there?" Emma asked nervously.

"You'd consider a magical solution?" she asked in return. Her face twisted into an incredulous expression and she took another step toward the pile. "I thought you were swearing that off."

"Having doubts about its reliability isn't swearing it off," Emma said. "You do realize that your protection spell over the apartment wasn't effective. It was burned to the ground."

"Nothing is 100%," she countered. "And it is much more effective when there is energy to feed off of inside the dwelling. The protection spell is more about protecting the residents than it is about protecting one's belongings."

"Well, forgive me for having doubts."

"Enough doubts to invest in an alarm system?" Regina asked emphatically. "Henry said it is quite the system, but I doubt it keeps out magic."

"Not all threats come in a magical form," Emma said with a frown. "And that is beside the point. What magical solution do you suggest for the dagger?"

"We," Regina said, looking over her shoulder at Emma pointedly. "We, as in you and I, could seal it in a safe of some sort with magic. The two of us would be the only two to be able to open it."

"Would that always require both of us?" Emma asked. "Or would it be one or the other? You know like a co-signer at the bank?"

Again the dark haired woman's mouth twitched into a smile. "One or the other," she said. "We would have to trust each other, but if it were to be missing there would be an obvious suspect."

***AAA***

David groaned with the effort of lifting the box Mary Margaret had directed him to from the floor to the shelf in her closet. It was technically a closet for both of them, but she had left him very little space. "What's in here?" he asked, his fingers whitening under the strain. "Rocks?"

His wife looked around the door with a gurgling Neal in her arms. "No, silly," she said. "They are some of Neal's baby things that he's outgrown. I thought that maybe Emma might need them for the baby or you never know…"

With a push, David shoved the box flush against the wall and looked suspiciously at his wife. "Something you're not telling me?"

She cocked her head to the side and looked at him. "No, I'm not pregnant," she said. "I'm just saying that we haven't discussed the idea of more children. It's not an impossibility that we might want more."

David bit his lip worriedly and ran his hands down the side of his jeans. "I hadn't thought of that," he said seriously. "Our daughter is expecting another baby. We're already grandparents…"

"So you don't want another child?"

Taking a step backward, David threw up his hands protectively. "I didn't say that. I just said it wasn't something I had thought about. Neal's not even a year yet. Emma's our age. This is a strange situation. We need to think about this."

Mary Margaret just shook her head. "I didn't mean to frighten you," she said as she walked back into the alcove of their bedroom. "By the way, I invited Emma and Killian for a late dinner. Try to look less scared when they get here, okay?"

David laughed nervously and emerged to take his son in his arms and let Mary Margaret fuss over dinner. The former teacher turned mayor seemed to enjoy the tasks of cooking, especially when she had a captive audience to taste and test her wares. As David had pointed out to her on more than one occasion, she would have had a slew of staff to perform such tasks in the Enchanted Forest, but in Storybrooke she took to the challenge easily.

By the time Killian was knocking on the door, the smells of fresh vegetables, herbs, and other treats were permeating throughout the narrow room. Having already put Neal down for the night, David answered the door and pulled his daughter into a hug with a lazy arm thrown around his son-in-law.

"You didn't have to do anything," Mary Margaret scolded her daughter as she relieved the blonde woman of the covered dish. "I invited you to dinner for your company not your cooking."

Emma laughed and shrugged out of the coat she was wearing. "I wish I could take the credit," she said with a glance at Killian's embarrassed expression. "But someone has been watching cooking shows behind my back. That is all Killian."

David chuckled and pretended to look alarmed at the dish. "Let me guess, something with seafood?"

The rosy blush of Killian's cheeks deepened. "No, mate," he said with a grin. "My mother used to bake quite a bit. It's one of the memories I still have of her. Watching one of those shows reminded me of her and I tried my hand at it. I can't promise it's edible."

Mary Margaret grinned, peeking under the cover. "It looks great," she said, breathing in the scent. "And don't let David kid you too much. He's actually a bit of a cook himself." She elbowed her husband teasingly. "Come on Emma," she said, smiling at her daughter. "Let's leave them to swap recipes and you give me an update on my new grandchild."

After dinner David waved off the couple's attempts to help with the dishes, proclaiming it as his responsibility for the evening. Emma had rolled her eyes and thrown up her hands in mock surrender. "I'm not going to beg to do the dishes," she said, falling back into her chair.

"So the doctor said you're fine," Mary Margaret asked again, passing David her plate. "Nothing to worry about?"

Emma shook her head. "I'm fine. The baby's fine." She looked over at Killian's tired glance. "My blood pressure is right on the borderline, but the baby's heart is perfectly normal. So I'm supposed to eat less salt, exercise a little more, and not get stressed out. They will check again at the next appointment."

Mary Margaret huffed a bit disbelievingly, turning to face Killian. "And you're going to see to it that she follows the doctor's orders, right?"

"I will do my best," he said, taking another sip of his drink. "But you know your daughter, milady. I am but one man up against her." He groaned at Emma's playful slap and then chuckled. "I am happy to report she's been on her best behavior since they called. She's even taken a nap."

"It's not nice to make fun of me," Emma complained. "I'm pregnant, not deaf."

"Sounds like paperwork duty to me," David said from the sink. "Maybe you could get to those license requests that have been piling up."

Emma groaned and glared at each of them. "You just don't want to do those stupid forms that the mayor requires," she pouted. "Seriously? Have we never heard of a copy machine?"

Mary Margaret laughed, holding up a hand to stop the comments. "The mayor hears suggestions for city functions at her meetings on Tuesdays."

_**Thoughts? I could use them today!**_


End file.
